tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59314536872562320172017-09-26T13:09:15.344-04:00TANSTAAFL CANADA!The personal blog of Caleb McMillanCaleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.comBlogger557125TanstaaflCanadahttps://feedburner.google.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-78092220234456770062017-06-22T22:48:00.000-04:002017-07-13T15:28:18.399-04:00What's Happening in BC Politics? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_ngWk9xyhDs/WUyBJ0qBW1I/AAAAAAAADg0/te5dk9vQbu0zZ35d6Wvylp3IOGxYJHzvQCLcBGAs/s1600/christy-clark-andrew-weaver-john-horgan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="664" data-original-width="1180" height="225" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_ngWk9xyhDs/WUyBJ0qBW1I/AAAAAAAADg0/te5dk9vQbu0zZ35d6Wvylp3IOGxYJHzvQCLcBGAs/s400/christy-clark-andrew-weaver-john-horgan.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">Gawd, I hate politics.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">Although Christy Clark has given her throne speech, it is the Lt. Governor who technically decides the outcome.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">Because when people say “BC,” they must forget what the “B” stands for.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">British.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">And in this inherited political system, we commoners divide monarchical power with democratic and aristocratic powers.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">It’s almost as if the classical liberal English of old understood political philosophy.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">That every society has its monarchical, democratic and aristocratic elements.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">That the success of the British Empire more or less rested on balancing these governing principles.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">So while Christy and Horgan lust after power like blood-thirsty parasites, it is the unelected Head of State that will determine BC’s future.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">Since the BC legislature would be in a virtual stalemate if the NDP-Green coalition comes to power, the speaker of the house, who is currently Liberal, would have to constantly cast a tie-breaking vote.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">If the Lieutenant-Governor doesn’t have confidence in this hobbled together agreement between the NDP and Greens, then it really doesn’t matter that the MLAs propose and vote on an amendment to topple the Liberals.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">Now, in 2017, these Head of States like BC’s Lieutenant-Governor or Canada’s Governor General don’t hold much power beyond figureheads and rubber stamps. The democratic element has eroded society and is actively undermining free markets.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">In fact, the Governor General of Canada just apologized for the fact that even aboriginals are technically immigrants.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">Worse than a runaway legislature, the social media mob now has public opinion in its grasp. How does a far-right bigot make it in this world?</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">Will the Lt-Governor side with Corrupt Clark or the Horgan-Weaver Tax-and-Spend Brigade?</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">Clark is clearly the lesser evil, provided that the Libertarian Party never wins any seats, and it would have been nice to see the Greens side with her (#ISideWithHer).</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">Think about it — nice, clean environmental record while cutting taxes and red-tape. The BC Liberals are the most fiscally conservative Liberals in Canada and, hey, since we have a carbon tax anyway, you might as well massively decrease income taxes, and while you’re at it, get rid of that sales tax. There’s already a federal one, isn’t that enough?</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">And property taxes at a municipal level are getting out of control, but I digress.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">BC could be looking at another election.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">How fun.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">More of those goddamn plastic signs.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">More commercials and before YouTube videos too! C’mon, man! I can’t skip that one? A full 30 seconds? I’d rather watch a full minute or two of actual commercials!</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">But there’s still hope.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">The Greens aren’t calling their deal with the NDP a “coalition,” meaning, they could look at the promises made in the throne speech and say, okay, since this government depends on how we vote, let’s make this parliament work by having the stable Liberal Party in charge.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">And knowing lower mainland BC, this would result in plummeting poll numbers for Weaver and his Greens.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1">And since democracy <i>is</i> the god that failed... The Lt-Governor would be best to play ball and let the NDP form government.<br /><br />But I hope she doesn't.<br /><br />*Update* She did. Say hello to Premier Horgan&nbsp;</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/cW3T8r7z5SM" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com1http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2017/06/whats-happening-in-bc-politics.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-63130714583330864992016-12-06T15:25:00.000-05:002016-12-06T15:25:59.079-05:00All Hail the CRTC!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fyDV92Zr6u4/WEccsk10FMI/AAAAAAAADcM/70FCJRSEhrMJM0MHeIJhQ8a37LqgZbNQgCLcB/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-06%2Bat%2B12.16.14%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fyDV92Zr6u4/WEccsk10FMI/AAAAAAAADcM/70FCJRSEhrMJM0MHeIJhQ8a37LqgZbNQgCLcB/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-12-06%2Bat%2B12.16.14%2BPM.png" width="322" /></a></div>Canadians pay through the nose for the internets.<br /><br />Our cell phones aren't cheap, either.<br /><br />This is, of course, the government's fault. The CRTC regulator is to blame, but so is legislation that favours Canadian companies at the expense of American companies.<br /><br />Putting Canadians out of work, really. Depriving them of entrepreneurial status.<br /><br />Who knows what innovations a Canadian could create when he or she has access to American markets.<br /><br />Canada's Telecom cartel and the CRTC are destroying wealth before it's even created.<br /><br />And it's about to get worse.<br /><br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br />First, the <a href="http://business.financialpost.com/fp-tech-desk/four-crtc-decisions-that-will-impact-your-phone-tv-and-internet-bills-in-2017?__lsa=00a3-f9a0">CRTC wants to establish a wholesale price for interest usage.</a> That's right, a final rate on what Bell, Rogers, Telus, SaskTel, Shaw, Cogeco, MTS and Videotron can charge.<br /><br />This centrally-planned rate also determines what the Telecom giants charge smaller companies on their physical networks.<br /><br />Wouldn't it be great if American companies could come up here and build new internet infrastructure?<br /><br />Wouldn't it be great if governments and banks everywhere stopped debasing the national monies?<br /><br />Slow and steady inflation to induce economic growth is about as backwards as having the CRTC set wholesale internet prices.<br /><br />Until Canadians embrace&nbsp;laissez-faire capitalism, the deterioration will continue. Phone and internet bills will rise steadily.<br /><br />The CRTC says it must set prices to help foster competition. Their reasoning is invalid. They focus on the apparent benefits while ignoring the unseen consequences.<br /><br />Opposition to the scheme focuses on the effect lower fees might hold. They fear lack of investment into the broadband network.<br /><br />What about the malinvestment orchestrated by the CRTC?<br /><br />The solution is simple: decommission the CRTC and open the market to international commerce. Canada's protectionist telecommunications industry is a global eyesore.<br /><br />And it hurts consumers.<br /><br />But never fear! The CRTC is here.<br /><br />They've been investigating monopolistic practices of the Telecom cartel. Consumers were complaining about overcharging on data plans.<br /><br />Consumers accused Telecom of acting as "gatekeepers" while Telecom said something along the lines of, "hey, we're a business, we're only in it for the money."<br /><br />Of course, the problem is lack of competition. The market-clearing price for mobile data plans is higher than otherwise would be.<br /><br />Telecom pockets more consumer funds because they enjoy a nice little made-in-Canada cartel.<br /><br />And, lo and behold, even a consumer advocacy group swings to the left. Meanwhile, a CRTC tribunal of bureaucrats will decide on "differential pricing" instead of permitting the market to work.<br /><br />But how could the market work?<br /><br />The CRTC imposes codes regulating everything from conduct to contract lengths, unlocking phone fees, wireless data limits, and cancellation fees. And that's just scratching the surface.<br /><br />It's as if the CRTC is unaware of the difference between commercial contracts and consumer contracts.<br /><br />Commercial contracts "are usually between corporate entities with specialized knowledge of industrial practices and a financial interest in minimizing the interruption of business."<br /><br />Consumer contracts "are those in which one or both parties lack commercial sophistication and large sums do not rest upon a speedy resolution of any dispute that might arise."<br /><br />Instead of having a uniform body of contract law, perhaps we could have <a href="http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm">a free market for legal services.&nbsp;</a><br /><br />Perhaps we could also have a free market in telecommunications.<br /><div style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.83em; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/s4ryv5A7Z3w" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com1http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/12/all-hail-crtc.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-71167423999725118112016-09-07T18:36:00.002-04:002016-09-08T11:24:52.530-04:00How To Game the System and Make Taxpayers Pay for Your Shitty Business Idea<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T7wn_RoyHNk/V9CVuZgWQSI/AAAAAAAADaQ/DcPgNLZiAuYoClChpqhrZxIrxvPXCVBWACLcB/s1600/Money-resize.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T7wn_RoyHNk/V9CVuZgWQSI/AAAAAAAADaQ/DcPgNLZiAuYoClChpqhrZxIrxvPXCVBWACLcB/s400/Money-resize.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Alyssa Furtado had no startup money, but she had an idea.<br /><br />So, did she pitch the idea to venture capitalists? Did she find some way to raise the necessary capital?<br /><br />No, of course not. <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-money/how-my-company-raised-more-than-1-million-in-government-grants/article31308864/">She pillaged the taxpayer through government grants.</a><br /><br />Can’t say I&nbsp;entirely blame her. If she didn’t do it, someone else would, and thus the system bestows socialism and entrepreneurial laziness.<br /><br />But still, writing an op-ed in a major newspaper may not be the best PR strategy.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br />Alyssa praised the grants that awarded her over $1-million that doesn’t have to be paid back.<br /><br />She gave us, dear readers, advice on how we too can game the system.<br /><br />This isn’t a type of “entrepreneurship” that should be encouraged or applauded.<br /><br />“Consider the application process like an investment pitch,” she writes, except, instead of pitching the idea to investors who have earned their capital by providing goods and services to the public on a voluntary basis — she’s pitching ideas to bureaucrats who have no direct financial incentive to be careful with this money.<br /><br />Money forced out of taxpayers and likely more valuable if directed to hospitals than entrepreneurs incapable of raising capital on their own.<br /><br />If the government wants to help, then they can lower taxes across the board and gut red tape above and beyond what they think is necessary.<br /><br />“RateHub applies for four or five grants each year. It’s made a profound difference in our ability to support our company’s growth.”<br /><br />Well yeah, it’s free money from the government. Except it’s not free. Alyssa has to waste time going through the bureaucratic paperwork process. And taxpayers are on the hook for the billions this all adds up to.<br /><br />Bragging about sponging off the taxpayer due to her inability to fund a business idea shouldn't be good PR.<br /><br />When business success is measured by how much taxpayer money you can loot from the treasury, then Canada is in trouble.<br /><br />There is nothing to be proud of. Fleecing taxpayers for more than $1-million should be condemned.<br /><br />She should be ashamed of herself.<br /><br />Not to mention, this is all entirely unsustainable in the long-run. You can't create wealth by destroying it first.<br /><br />Somebody needs to read Mises.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/brgKx6KI31c" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com3http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/09/how-to-game-system-and-make-taxpayers.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-75197419941741818642016-08-22T18:40:00.000-04:002016-08-22T18:42:36.381-04:00You Cannot Falsify Praxeology<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YRh_CW0IEyw/V7t92O9iLLI/AAAAAAAADZg/5omZeSeb9okg2mpXEF4h6Gvrlo1j11n_ACLcB/s1600/praxeology.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YRh_CW0IEyw/V7t92O9iLLI/AAAAAAAADZg/5omZeSeb9okg2mpXEF4h6Gvrlo1j11n_ACLcB/s400/praxeology.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />Unlike the natural “hard” sciences, the study of human action doesn’t proceed from inductive generalizations of perceived regularities. Instead, its method is deductive, its starting point is the concept of action.<br /><br />From the analysis of the concept, economics can be deduced. “Action and reason,” wrote Mises in Human Action, “may even be called two different aspects of the same thing.”<br /><br />But why would humans, who are part of the natural world, require different analysis?<br /><div><br /></div><div><a name='more'></a><br /></div><div><br />Even Mises wrote that “determinism is the epistemological basis of the human search for knowledge,” so why not start from inductive generalizations about human action?<br /><br />Because, while determinism does apply to human beings, we don’t know how human thought and action are determined by physiological factors. At least not in the sense that we can discern how Einstein came up with the theory of relativity, or what went on in the mind of 20th-century composer Frank Zappa.<br /><br />The mind operates autonomously but it is not independent of the physical world. There are plenty of ways to build a house, but there is only one correct way, so to speak.<br /><br />So, just as Ludwig von Mises debated positivists in the first part of the 20th century, today’s praxeologists are defending the science against those who demand a test for falsifiability, a doctrine promoted by intellectual giants such as philosopher Karl Popper, astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, and Bill Nye “the science guy.”<br /><br />Praxeology is true despite failing the falsifiability test, and, why this is so, requires some philosophy, a “meaningless topic,” according to Bill Nye.<br /><br />Neil DeGrasse Tyson also claims philosophy has not been “a productive contributor to our understanding of the natural world.”<br /><br />Stephen Hawking declared philosophy dead.<br /><br />But Tyson, Nye and Hawking are holding a metaphysical position, one that resembles “scientism” rather than what is scientific.<br /><br />To declare praxeology illegitimate because they don’t understand philosophy is itself illegitimate. Lack of metaphysical belief does not overturn science.<br /><br />Tyson, Nye and Hawking’s theory of knowledge is dedicated to the method of the natural sciences and underscored by their irrational rejection of philosophy. This is no basis for understanding why praxeology gives us knowledge of the real world.<br /><br />While philosophy is subordinate to science, by rejecting praxeology, many scientists are actually engaging in metaphysics.<br /><br />What about Karl Popper? He knew his philosophy, what about his falsifiability criterion?<br /><br />Popper did not take all metaphysical statements to be meaningless, just that scientific statements must be capable of being proven false.<br /><br />Praxeology, insofar that it is deductively derived from self-evident axioms, fails this test. Nothing falsifies praxeology.<br /><br />But the proper tests of praxeology are the truth of its axioms and the validity of its arguments. Why should praxeology meet the criterion of science proposed by a particular writer?<br /><br />Popper says that definitions do not describe real things: they are arbitrary proposals for the use of a term. But Popper’s characterization of scientific statements is itself an arbitrary proposal.<br /><br />Mises wrote: “The proposition that there are no synthetic a priori propositions is itself a… synthetic a priori position, for it can manifestly not be established by experience.”<br /><br />Praxeology is not Freudian psychology, which is a common and understandable response to why the verification principle is important.<br /><br />Definitions do describe real things, rejecting this doesn’t do away with reality.<br /><br />The fact that theorems can be falsified does not necessarily falsify praxeology, since economics, once learned, is recognized as factual and universally true.<br /><br />Is this an inductive generalization? Why? Why not reject other examples of a priori propositions?<br /><br />If praxeology consists of disputed analytic statements, on what grounds is this assertion made?<br /><br />Perhaps the propositions of string theory are tautological where we can’t learn anything new because the theory is non-falsifiable.<br /><br />Would Tyson, Nye or Hawking agree to that?<br /><br />Praxeology does not conflict with the natural sciences. It should not be disregarded due to some failure to falsify its axioms.<br /><br /><i>Further reading,<a href="https://mises.org/library/philosophical-contributions-ludwig-von-mises">&nbsp;"The Philosophical Contributions of Ludwig von Mises,</a>" by David Gordon.</i><br /><i><br /></i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-i-dream-of-a-world-where-the-truth-is-what-shapes-people-s-politics-rather-than-politics-neil-degrasse-tyson-87-61-41.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-i-dream-of-a-world-where-the-truth-is-what-shapes-people-s-politics-rather-than-politics-neil-degrasse-tyson-87-61-41.jpg" height="188" width="400" /></a></div><i><br /></i></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/wgMQD9L7KMY" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com1http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/08/you-cannot-falsify-praxeology.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-10131549731317970102016-08-05T17:00:00.001-04:002016-08-05T17:02:46.193-04:00Earthquakes in British Columbia!!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HtDeV8RYPrs/V6LsQsqq7WI/AAAAAAAADXk/jYb9nGf1EA8OCz7l517we-dCPjQCFCSMQCLcB/s1600/resources-digitalassets-Disaster-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HtDeV8RYPrs/V6LsQsqq7WI/AAAAAAAADXk/jYb9nGf1EA8OCz7l517we-dCPjQCFCSMQCLcB/s400/resources-digitalassets-Disaster-4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Would you ever live in an earthquake zone?<br /><br />Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo, Tofino?<br /><br />Goddamn, a tsunami in Tofino and you're done.<br /><div><br /></div><div>Drowning is one of the worst ways to go.<br /><br />But let’s say you survived.<br /><br />Or let’s say you lived safely inland, away from the Pacific Ring of Fire.<br /><br />You’d still suffer from the hands of government.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/how-a-major-earthquake-could-put-cracks-in-canada-s-financial-system-1.3013500">The C.D. Howe Institute is warning about this.</a><br /><br />Funnily enough, they don’t see the massive fallout as a boom to the economy.<br /><br />They’re saying a $35-billion insurance pay-out would cripple the industry.<br /><br />We’re talking “systemic financial impact.” Forget any government bailouts.<br /><br />There’s nothing “we” can do collectively that can’t already be done individually.<br /><br />A major earthquake off the West Cost would be one of the craziest things to happen in our lifetime.<br /><br />And there’s a 30 percent chance of it happening in 50 years.<br /><br />That sounds better than some lotteries.<br /><br />And since this whole fucking country is one giant artificial construct, where Western wealth gets funnelled back to the Laurentian elite, that is, the Montreal-Toronto-Ottawa corridor, a massive earthquake would financially impact the whole country.</div><div><br />And 45 percent of homeowners in Vancouver don’t even have quake insurance.<br /><br />Most mortgages, including those backed by the <i>unshakeable</i> Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (see what I did there), aren’t covered at all.<br /><br />The Property and Casualty Insurance Compensation Corporation (PACICC) says, like the 2008 financial crisis, a catastrophic earthquake is serious and inevitable.<br /><br />According to them, and the C.D. Howe Institute, Canada’s economic players aren’t ready for the Big One.<br /><br />So what’s the best course of action?<br /><br />How would a libertarian society deal with this problem? Why would that be better than the statist quo?<br /><br />Would private generosity from less affected areas really be superior to a burdensome tax regime that funnels from one group to another?<br /><br />What if people in the rest of the country give a voluntary fuck you to British Columbia?</div><div><br />The C.D. Howe report says the government should raise awareness.<br /><br />They advise people to buy insurance.<br /><br />And as for the insurance companies, will they go bankrupt? … what can I say?</div><div><br /></div><div>If anyone is to blame, it's the central bank for undermining the market order.<br /><br />Democratic governments also legislate petty tyranny and wage war with anybody and everybody, no matter how violent.<br /><br />In the long-term view of things, potential earthquakes, like undermining free markets, take a backseat to short-term interests.<br /><br />Yet, the long-term thinking free market is the guarantee we'd need to get through this crisis.<br /><br />Democracy is by far the dumbest political system ever devised by man.<br /><br />What can you expect? We’re hunter-gatherers adapting to a complex market order few of us understand.<br /><br /></div><div>But even praxeological knowledge won't excuse us from an inevitable death.<br /><br />Whether it's old age, cancer, an earthquake, or at the hand of government (and maybe indirectly, say, through the universal health care system), we'll all going to die.<br /><br />But in the meantime, you own yourself. Even if you interpret that as mere self-control.<br /><br />So get out of dodge if the thought of an earthquake scares you.</div><div><br /></div><div>We still all suffer from the hands of government.<br /><br />And they will fuck up any disaster response. Just look at what happened with Hurricane Katrina.<br /><br />That wasn't Bush's fault, per se, but the inevitable result of bureaucracy overriding markets.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/CCD-KuoTMn0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com1http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/08/earthquakes-in-vancouver-british.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-54541887160460644342016-08-02T19:25:00.002-04:002016-08-02T19:31:23.338-04:0010 Idiosyncrasies of Vancouver<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NDI5TI4pstM/V6EKzNWyHXI/AAAAAAAADW8/x03c3XH_-4chWlUwa_Xg53RfbzRE1DW7QCLcB/s1600/1509855_10203177574215310_6078618868333890121_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NDI5TI4pstM/V6EKzNWyHXI/AAAAAAAADW8/x03c3XH_-4chWlUwa_Xg53RfbzRE1DW7QCLcB/s400/1509855_10203177574215310_6078618868333890121_n.jpg" width="288" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: &quot;helvetica&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Vancouver is the real-life version of Epcot</span></td></tr></tbody></table>Having now lived in Vancouver for over two years, I’ve come to notice some peculiars about this city. Here are ten.<br /><div></div><div><br /><b>10 — The police are lazy</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Not that I care, in fact, this is one of the nice things about the city.<br /><br />While everyone goes on about the North Shore mountains, the Pacific Ocean, or lack of snow, I find comfort in the fact that the police generally don’t give a shit.<br /><br />Sure, they’ll pull you over for some minor infraction, but for a city with over 100 illegal cannabis dispensaries, it’s clear that the cops are too lazy to enforce all the laws on the books.<br /><br />Or, more likely, there are too many laws on the books and, thanks to the economic calculation problem, the Vancouver Police Department has trouble allocating compliance.<br /><br /><b>9 — Fireworks are a big deal</b></div><div><b><br /></b>Did you ever watch <i>Parks and Recreation</i>? In it, there is a miniature horse named Li’l Sebastian that the town practically worships.<br /><br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br />Ben, a city planner from out of town, just doesn’t understand the community’s fascination with this tiny horse.<br /><br />This is how I feel about Vancouverites love of fireworks.<br /><br />I mean, they’re just fireworks. What’s the big deal?<br /><br />It’s not like every other city on this continent doesn’t have some kind of a fireworks display.<br /><br /><b>8 — Cold Zone Beer</b></div><div><b><br /></b>Unlike Ontario, British Columbia now allows for private liquor establishments. But there still exists the government retailer, “BC Liquor” where you can purchase warm beer right off the shelf.<br /><br />Except, of course, if the BC Liquor Store is one of the special outlets with a “cold zone.”<br /><br />Only the government would advertise cold beer as a luxury.<br /><br />Beer is supposed to be cold.<br /><br />It’s one thing to sell warm beer, but to advertise “cold zones” at selected retailers where we can buy beer the way it’s supposed to be sold (and with no extra charge!) is downright silly.<br /><br />Thank God for the private liquor stores.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tw_lXeUThX8/V6Eqy7E_M1I/AAAAAAAADXQ/tjiTS_kLpL8eT6l5TsSdKIEqe0qUaR-4QCLcB/s1600/IMG_20160802_145609.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tw_lXeUThX8/V6Eqy7E_M1I/AAAAAAAADXQ/tjiTS_kLpL8eT6l5TsSdKIEqe0qUaR-4QCLcB/s400/IMG_20160802_145609.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beer is supposed to be cold. You wouldn't sell frozen dinners at room temperature, would you?</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><b>7 — Unfriendliness</b></div><div><b><br /></b>As far Canada goes, Vancouver is by far the unfriendliest city I’d ever lived in.<br /><br />People don’t make eye contact, they never smile, say hello, they don’t even say “sorry,” (they're more likely to yell at each other).<br /><br />Maybe this is because of the large homeless population. When every other person on the street is asking for money, you tend to start ignoring everyone around you.<br /><br />As well, I’m sure this is just a big city thing. But Vancouver does seem a lot colder than Toronto, despite the warmer weather.<br /><br /><b>6 — Left-Wing Yuppies</b></div><div><b><br /></b>Of course, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.<br /><br />More common than anywhere else in Canada (except maybe Ottawa) are the busybody yuppies.<br /><br />They drive hybrid cars, consider themselves “progressive” (especially when calling for increased state power), talk about environment sustainability without actually doing anything, and thumb their noses at anyone with different values.<br /><br />These are the people that support the city’s ban on Uber and overregulation of Air B’n’B.<br /><br />They call themselves progressives but routinely blame the Chinese for the city’s real estate bubble.<br /><br />For a great example of this mentality, check out the “Smug Alert!” episode of <i>South Park.</i><br /><br /><b>5 — Asian Food is Everywhere</b></div><div><b><br /></b>As are Asians.<br /><br />Sometimes Vancouver feels like an Asian city, but I don’t mind. Ramen is pretty good.<br /><br /><b>4 — We Built This City on Undermining Cars</b></div><div><b><br /></b>This city was not built for cars.<br /><br />See idiosyncrasy #6, I blame the yuppies.<br /><br />There are no major highways to get through the city, especially from the airport.<br /><br />And why not?<br /><br />Because environmentalists complain any time this is brought up.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>The result? Bumper-to-bumper traffic. An action that causes more pollution than a seamless highway for cars to drive on.<br /><br />It’s the unintended consequence of statist environmentalism.<br /><br />Also, the traffic lights never sync up. Especially since pedestrian crosswalks take precedent.<br /><br />It’s just one mass of cars moving together from one stoplight to the next.<br /><br />As well, there are bike lanes everywhere and plans to build more by limiting parking spaces and road space.<br /><br /><b>3 — Sidewalk Etiquette</b></div><div><b><br /></b>Perhaps because of its large immigrant population, Vancouver lacks sidewalk etiquette.<br /><br />Or perhaps it’s just me. I just feel that, like the roads, pedestrian traffic should stick to the right.<br /><br />This doesn’t happen in Vancouver. People walk on whatever side they want. Some people, in large groups, walk far too slow and in the middle. They make it essentially impossible to get around and have no awareness of the line of people forming behind them.<br /><br />Stick to the right-hand side. Especially if you’re slow. If you’re in a large group, don’t walk side by side, be mindful of others on the sidewalk.<br /><br />In fact, let’s just privatize the sidewalks. That’ll fix the unwritten rules of sidewalk etiquette.<br /><br /><b>2 — Transit Police are Armed and Bylaw Officers Look Like Actual Cops</b></div><div><b><br /></b>The transit monopoly in Vancouver has its own police force and they have guns. They’ve been known to shoot and kill people.<br /><br />As well, the bylaw officers look like actual cops but they only deal with bylaw infractions. It’s ridiculous… er, I mean, “progressive.”<br /><br /><b>1 — Nobody Follows the Rules</b></div><div><b><br /></b>Like any good “progressive” city, there are plenty of rules on what you can’t do.<br /><br />But nobody listens.<br /><br />There’s no smoking or drinking at the beach, but very often there are people doing just that. And they don’t bother hiding it.</div><div><br /></div><div>The smell of cannabis permeates the city.<br /><br />I don’t know what the hell the bylaw officers do all day, or where they go, because this is just the tip of the iceberg.<br /><br />Vancouver is a perfect example of the “more laws, less justice” quote.</div><div><br /></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/a-djohIxym4" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com2http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/08/10-idiosyncrasies-of-vancouver.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-68567698246387470402016-07-29T19:13:00.002-04:002016-07-30T17:31:38.653-04:00Vancouver Housing Bubble: Wildcard!<div class="tr_bq"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WJI4NBpusm8/V5vg6ATIC9I/AAAAAAAADWo/6Z7Vj257T_cYq3PODAdz-L95OILHI046ACLcB/s1600/c091324e52955297f2d2432603e78b438910d4b441df97d647651a4d96e1283a.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="382" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WJI4NBpusm8/V5vg6ATIC9I/AAAAAAAADWo/6Z7Vj257T_cYq3PODAdz-L95OILHI046ACLcB/s400/c091324e52955297f2d2432603e78b438910d4b441df97d647651a4d96e1283a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Silly Vancouverites.<br /><br />At the risk of this post being used against me in a municipal election (<a href="https://www.mises.ca/the-problem-with-canmore-2/">like what happened when I ran for mayor of Canmore, Alberta</a>), all I have to say is: Vancouverites are delusional.<br /><br />First off, although this is completely anecdotal, I cannot count how many people I've spoken to that think Vancouver's housing prices will never crash.<br /><br />Oh yeah, those $3 million houses will just keep climbing in value.<br /><br />Fucking delusional.<br /><br />Second, they blame the Chinese all the time. I once mentioned the low-interest rates set by the central bank. I was told that these foreign investors pay for everything in cash and therefore "interest rates are irrelevant."<br /><br />*Headdesk* For when facepalms aren't enough.<br /><br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br /><br /><br />Okay, where to begin?<br /><br />The "wildcard" as determined by<a href="http://www.straight.com/news/745336/us-federal-reserve-and-nervous-bankers-could-put-brakes-vancouver-housing-market"> <i>Georgia Straight</i> writer Charlie Smith</a> is the United States Federal Reserve.<br /><br />Never mind that they actually caused this beast. That credit expansion worldwide is the cause of all these property bubbles.<br /><br />Apparently, it's all about the foreign investors and the Fed is just an "affect" [sic] as one Facebook commenter put it.<br /><br />I don't want to dwell too much on this article since there are bigger fish to fry, but I will note this one line:<br /><blockquote><br />Keep in mind that the U.S. Federal Reserve will likely want to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/27/us-interest-rates-federal-reserve-unchanged-economy">hold the line</a> on raising interest rates until after the November presidential election.&nbsp;</blockquote><blockquote>That will keep the U.S. economy humming forward, which would help Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton stave off a challenge from Donald Trump.</blockquote><br /><br />Oh yes, the Fed will "hold the line" on raising rates, but only because there's no other option. The Fed tried to raise rates late last year and the result was a little bit of chaos.<br /><br />Now, with the Brexit or whatever excuse they cling to, they can cut rates into negative territory, warning off any economic reality of scarcity and the unsustainability of providing credit where there are no adequate savings to back it up.<br /><br />But my real beef with this line is that an apparent neutral board of directors who are supposed to remain "independent" from government are holding off on certain monetary policies so the Democratic candidate can win.<br /><br />Like it fucking matters.<br /><br />Donald Trump is today's Ronald Reagan: campaigns as a populist but will make peace with the establishment and govern like a neo-con.<br /><br />Anyway....<br /><br />The Fed can't raise rates without bankrupting the West and usher&nbsp;in a (much needed) economic depression.<br /><br />That doesn't quite work for Wall Street or the people who make money off cheap credit, plus it's not politically favourable so...<br /><br />So? Back to Vancouver.<br /><br />Or Vancouverites who not only believe that housing prices will never fall, but that&nbsp;one of the only people who have predicted this fiasco is a "typical con bot" and an "idiot" and whatever he says, "do the opposite."<br /><br />I am, of course, referring to <a href="http://www.straight.com/news/745281/former-mp-garth-turner-points-finger-government-crap-houses-costing-million-bucks">former MP Garth Turner</a>, blogger and author of "The Greater Fool"<br /><br />Like him or hate him, Turner has been on point (more or less) when it comes to Canada's housing bubble. And he's not jumping on the bandwagon, he's been singing this tune since at least 2010.<br /><br />Turner says, "There’s simply no data showing foreign guys caused houses to go ballistic, and overwhelming evidence Canadians have done this themselves (with the help of politicians)... Even the latest Van stats reveal locals and foreigners spent an identical amount per purchase, and Canadians outnumbered them by nine-to-one. Case closed."<br /><br />Indeed, case closed.<br /><br />Vancouver's housing bubble isn't the fault of foreign buyers, and imposing a "head tax" on foreign investment will do nothing.<br /><br />As Turner writes, "In fact for decades, there’ve been strong pro-real estate measures enacted by every successive group of politicians, leading us directly to now—when the average family can no longer afford the average home... Artificially-low borrowing rates, government-backed mortgage insurance, legislated 5% down payments, RRSP homebuyer loans, first-timers grants, property tax rebates, land transfer tax exemptions—the list of interventions is endless. So now crap houses cost a million. Good job, government."<br /><br />It's all about peace, order, and good government, right?<br /><br />Meanwhile, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (Canada's version of Freddie Mae and Fannie Mae) is finally admitting something might be wrong.<br /><br />"Strong evidence of problematic conditions is seen in Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Saskatoon and Regina," their report stated. "In Toronto and Vancouver, this is due to the combination of price acceleration and overvaluation. In Calgary, Saskatoon and Regina, this is due to the combination of overvaluation and overbuilding."<br /><div><br /></div><div>Actually, it's a combination of low-interest rates and the policies cited above by Garth Turner.</div><div><br /></div><div>Why do Canadians, especially Vancouverites, think they're exempt from the laws of economics?</div><div><br /></div><div>That somehow the laws of supply and demand, especially with loans and savings, are irrelevant?</div><div><br /></div><div>This isn't going to end well. And I don't mean a real estate crash. I mean ignorant statist yuppies regarding themselves as "progressive" while calling for government overreach and power the likes of which human civilization hasn't seen since the days of Mao in China and Stalin in Russia.</div><div><br /></div><div>This isn't hyperbole. This is the inevitable conclusion of all-around government bureaucracy. Even if Canada remains "peaceful" in the sense that we never see the likes of such a leader, there remains an economic calculation problem.</div><div><br /></div><div>Politicians cannot and will not fix this problem. They helped create it.</div><div><br /></div><div>The only solution to scale back government power, legalize competing currencies, cut red-tape so anyone can start a bank and.... well I'm sure there's more we can do but let's take it one step at a time.</div><div><br /></div><div>We can start by putting the Bank of Canada out of business. Forget new taxes or regulations on foreign buyers. Central banks are the cause of this mess. Everything else is an effect.</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/vo3T4F3JTfg" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com2http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/07/vancouver-housing-bubble-wildcard.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-69951663037674207502016-07-28T20:38:00.001-04:002016-07-29T18:04:13.438-04:00No Bananas For You!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.ontariowestcoastrentals.com/uploads/1/7/4/5/17451267/3191989_orig.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.ontariowestcoastrentals.com/uploads/1/7/4/5/17451267/3191989_orig.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><a href="https://www.thestar.com/life/food_wine/2016/07/27/theres-an-ontario-farm-growing-bananas.html">Terry Brake was in a car accident </a>that left him with brain damage. He had to relearn how to walk and speak.<br /><br />Can you imagine?<br /><br />I probably would have said fuck it. Do a bunch of drugs, fuck a bunch of whores, then put a gun to my head when the fun was over.<br /><br />But Terry obviously had more ambition than I.<br /><br />As part of his recovery therapy, Brake’s doctor gave him a banana plant to grow.<br /><br />This sparked an idea that eventually saw Brake and his caregiver start a 40-hectare tropical fruit farm.<br /><br />In Ontario.<br /><br />Tropical fruit.<br /><div><br />In Ontario.<br /><br />Surprisingly enough, or perhaps not so surprisingly, the hard part isn’t growing tropical fruit in Ontario’s climate.<br /><br />The hard part is getting through the government bureaucracy.</div><div><br /></div><div><a name='more'></a><br />Now how much bureaucracy could there be?<br /><br />It’s not like anyone has ever tried to commercially grow bananas and papayas before. And how regulated could small farmers markets be?<br /><br />Located in Blyth, a three-hour drive west of Toronto, on Ontario’s “west coast,” the farm is six years old. <br /><br />“Our dream is to see (these fruits) growing everywhere and not have to depend on other countries and employ local people,” says Brake.<br /><br />Noble cause, I won’t comment on the “shop local” fallacy for the sake of argument.<br /><br />For my beef isn’t with some Ontario farmer growing grapefruit and coconuts in a greenhouse. It’s with the busy-body, nanny-state, anti-progressive, anti-liberal Liberal Government of Kathleen Wynne (although let’s be honest, the same shit would occur under the PCs)<br /><br />The farm is facing multiple charges from the Township of Huron and Huron County for “failing to obtain permits for its hoop houses,” as well as a charge from the Maitland Conservation Authority for “altering the wetland and clear-cutting.”<br /><br />First, we’ll begin with the latter since conservation authorities should not have this kind of power.<br /><br />If any changes I make to the wetland on my property affects the wetland on your property, then there’s a case to be made and we have centuries of tort law in our common law tradition to deal with such a “threat.”<br /><br />If one cuts down trees on one’s own property, that is one’s own business. It certainly isn’t the role of busybody bureaucrats to lay charges.<br /><br />Especially since “We do select cutting,” says Brake. “We have loggers cut trees from an area and we don’t cut from it again for 20 years. We noticed in the last six years, our maple trees have gotten bigger because they have more room to grow now.”</div><div><br /></div><div>Imagine that. Private property owners actually having a long-term&nbsp;interest in their property...<br /><br />And, of course, the heat from the wood keeps the tropical plants alive during winter, thereby reducing Ontario’s “carbon footprint” when it comes to importing tropical fruits.<br /><br />But don’t tell Ontario bureaucrats that. They’re fucking stupid.<br /><br />Second, there is the issue of the “hoop houses”<br /><br />Apparently, the township's former building bureaucrat determined the hoop house wasn’t a permanent structure and wasn’t subject to commercial taxes.<br /><br />The new bureaucrat-in-charge has overruled the old one and now Blake, far from being a genuine entrepreneur, is a criminal facing a court date in October.<br /><br />Welcome to Canada, particularly Ontario, where wealth creation, environmental sustainability, and entrepreneurial innovation are met with charges from unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, some of whom are anti-environmental environmentalists.<br /><br />How about that.<br /><br />In the meantime, there is an online petition supporting the farm, but anyone with any sense knows the state is going to do what the state wants to do.<br /><br />And if that means undermining a farm bringing local, tropical, food to people on a sustainable basis — so be it.<br /><br />The cause of “progressivism” is too great to be derailed by pesky entrepreneurs and the consumers who have voluntarily purchased their product.</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/TV71jhgvvW8" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com1http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/07/no-bananas-for-you.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-38023526157506267152016-07-21T01:35:00.000-04:002016-07-21T14:56:27.130-04:00China in Vancouver, BC<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9EecVWIaBV4/V4_k_s1X1mI/AAAAAAAADWQ/_ALlOVi_8go2-4HG_ZXB26ISFYwI9rbnACLcB/s1600/britishcolumbia43bloggolb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="347" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9EecVWIaBV4/V4_k_s1X1mI/AAAAAAAADWQ/_ALlOVi_8go2-4HG_ZXB26ISFYwI9rbnACLcB/s400/britishcolumbia43bloggolb.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Vancouver is in a real estate bubble because banks have been consuming capital to prompt up unsustainable financial markets.<br /><br />High housing prices are a part of a larger chain of cause and effect. A million dollar housing market in Vancouver may look like the fault of Chinese laundering money through home buying, but there’s more to it.<br /><br />For one, China is a corrupt place but with so many successful entrepreneurs, it makes sense for them to want to park their money in safer havens like Canadian property and companies.<br /><div><br /></div><div><a name='more'></a><br /><br />It wasn’t so long ago that Mao’s regime murdered billions, China may have figured out freer markets, but political power and corruption remain more of a problem there than here in the West.<br /><br />In our confederacy of dunces, people, especially in Vancouver, target Chinese homebuyers without grasping any other factor, except maybe a few quick jabs at AirBnB.<br /><br />Despite permitting the conditions that led to the housing market becoming so lopsided, the government is now tasked with fixing the problem.<br /><br />But which level of government and how long it will take and what exactly will they do?<br /><br />The answer, of course, will come from the market. <br /><br />Specifically, a Chinese bank looking to seize numerous Vancouver properties and other assets currently valued at $7.3 million.<br /><br />A Chinese fugitive left with an unpaid $10 million debt and now the Chinese bank is filing a lawsuit with the Supreme Court of British Columbia.<br /><br />The Chinese claim&nbsp;the defendant is hiding stolen assets abroad. <br /><br />“The person involved left China with a large debt owed,” said the lawyer who representing the Chinese bank in this case.<br /><br />Vancouver residents are, of course, worried and furious the situation has even gotten this far.<br /><div><br />What precedent will be set if the lawsuit goes to court and a Chinese bank becomes the owner of private property in Vancouver, British Columbia?<br /><br />It’s not as if banks are innocent in the matter.<br /><br />The banks are fucking us, where’s the aggression in fucking them back? It’s merely defensive fraud, an eye for an eye.<br /><br />But this leaves the whole world blind and so Canadian and Chinese technocrats finalize deals regarding “stolen” assets.<br /><br />But if Chinese residents flee China with stolen capital, buy up Canadian land and assets, and then get caught by Chinese authorities who work with the Canadian legal and bureaucratic system to effectively force these assets back into Chinese banking and government hands, who didn’t exactly come to these assets ethically to begin with — then, where is the moral foundation for cooperating with the Chinese?<br /><br />On what basis can we believe their evidence?<br /><br />Are these Chinese Vancouver homebuyers laundering money to fund their corruption, or are they innocents fleeing the country with their life savings?<br /><br />Communists are notorious for their show-trials. So I guess it’s up to British Columbia’s monopoly court system to decide. <br /><br />In the meantime, the larger picture of cause and effect remains hidden.<br /><br />A higher standard of living comes from savings and investment. Production must come before consumption.<br /><br />By manually lowering interest rates, central banks worldwide are flooding the market with “free capital,” draining the planet of its resources and raising the costs of living by debasing the money.<br /><br />Before Vancouverites and Canadians can come to terms with the housing crisis, clear definitions of knowledge and property are in order.<br /><br />That economics is descriptive language describing <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Human-Action-Ludwig-Von-Mises/dp/1614273545/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1469046964&amp;sr=1-1">reality as it is</a>, but in politics and the law, there is no such thing as <a href="http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm">uninterpretable language.</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/UuMevT83rX8" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com1http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/07/chinese-bank-looking-to-seize-vancouver.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-61052454962426097452016-07-15T18:37:00.003-04:002016-07-15T18:39:51.716-04:00How To Have a "Rightful Revolution"<blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XYEDmJHcnJk/V4ljzo-sVzI/AAAAAAAADVo/5w-3aZJuth8Via8gyHGhBDGY6UxERLLqwCLcB/s1600/633679737659863139-johnlocke.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XYEDmJHcnJk/V4ljzo-sVzI/AAAAAAAADVo/5w-3aZJuth8Via8gyHGhBDGY6UxERLLqwCLcB/s400/633679737659863139-johnlocke.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>“The great and chief end therefore, of Mens uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property… whenever the Legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience, and are left to the common Refuge, which God hath provided for all Men, against Force and Violence…. By this breach of Trust they forfeit the Power, the People had put into their hands, for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the People, who have a Right to resume their original Liberty.” - John Locke</blockquote><br />An election doesn’t validate the “we” or “us” pronouns.<br /><br />If you speak in the name of all Canadians, then I can only assume you have the consent of every Canadian.<br /><br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br /><br />It may be called the “Canadian Cancer Society,” but my endorsement shouldn’t be tacitly implied because I am a Canadian.<br /><br />The Canadian Taxpayers Federation doesn’t speak for all Canadians, nor does the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, or Health Canada.<br /><br />By using the term “Canada” or “Canadian,” these organizations hide behind collective camouflage.<br /><br />But what about Health Canada? Surely, as a bureau commissioned by elected members of parliament who represent Canadians, the bureaucracy and subsequent doling out of “goods” doesn’t mean that the organization speaks for all Canadians.<br /><br />As does the government of Canada, where an implicit “social contract” overrules the need for actual contracts, validating intergenerational taxation of income, property, and inheritance, as well as state centralization of education and health care goods and services.<br /><br />The only remedy isn’t voting.<br /><br />The federal government can use the productive output of the population as collateral on an ever-growing “public” debt.<br /><br />They can buy off present-living Canadians by borrowing from the anticipated wealth of their descendants.<br /><br />The bloated bureaucracy posed to benefit from the increased spending surely have no qualms about running up the nation’s credit card.<br /><br />These aren’t investments for “infrastructure” any more than Soviet central planning was economically productive.<br /><div><br />What’s seen are new roads, more hospital beds, and promises for better pensions. What is unseen is the wealth destruction that takes place, where entrepreneurs are crowded out and consumers are robbed of a more rational use of resources.<br /><br />The government has no money of its own, it can only collect and spend.<br /><br />Entrepreneurs rely on mutual exchange, where capital is accumulated, where actions are bound by supply and demand.<br /><br />A “mixed economy” brings corruption of not only people but to the means to wealth.<br /><br />And if you make it clear that they don’t consent? Tough luck. This is how things work in modern democracies.<br /><br />Special interests are well-funded, coordinated, and better able to influence political decisions than your average voter.<br /><br />Meanwhile, individuals and families, as consumers, producers, and savers, suffer the same fate as they did under past governments.<br /><br />Except now there is less public opposition&nbsp;since Justin is not Stephen Harper.<br /><br />Life and commerce, regulated by state control boards and bureaus, satisfy the sensibilities of the predominant special interests and the indifferent majority.<br /><br />The only remedy is the inherent economic failures of socialism.<br /><br />There is a "right" to revolution and all it takes is a little education in the ideas of free markets and liberty.</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/Vn_bNwdKCW8" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com1http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/07/how-to-have-rightful-revolution.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-3688590509275264412016-07-08T19:51:00.001-04:002016-07-08T19:51:27.919-04:00The "Social Contract" Scam<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/50/50d2544f913e5b51718545198a837f5b3d5144e68cc59745eb9d2721ab4a6798.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/50/50d2544f913e5b51718545198a837f5b3d5144e68cc59745eb9d2721ab4a6798.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a></div>There used to be this thing called the "Divine Right of Kings," where the populace was expected to consent to the monarchy because God himself appointed the royal class to rule over them.<br /><br />That idea has since been discarded, but the ever-so-popular "social contract" has replaced it despite being based on the same metaphysical bullshit.<br /><br />This time, it's not God who has appointed our wise overlords, but "we the people" through an electoral process we've had no hand in shaping or creating. We are simply born into the system and expected to obey.<br /><br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br /><br />Originating during the Age of Enlightenment, the social contract "addresses the questions of the origin of society and legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual."<br /><br />Fortunately, we've come a long way since the Enlightenment.<br /><br />For starters, we know that society is a result of purposeful human action, that is, economics. Just like how you can ignore physics and the Earth will keep spinning around the sun, many people can, and do, ignore praxeological economics despite how free markets obviously work better than government bureaus.<br /><br />As far as the "authority of the state over the individual," must be addressed, it can mean a couple things. First, the "state" can be interpreted to mean the violent sphere of society, as no matter how peaceful people are, there will always be murders, thefts, and frauds.<br /><br />Insofar that there is an&nbsp;authority to enforce peaceful relations and settle disputes, given our knowledge of economics, the "state" could mean a multitude of privately-owned organizations that rely on actual contracts signed by clients of said legal and/or security services.<br /><br />The second definition, and more commonly-used, is that the "state" is the tribe.<br /><br />Since the dawn of man, the tribe has had authority over the individual. It's only natural, since, working together with the group meant a larger probability of staying alive. For most of human history, we'd had to survive the harsh elements of nature, including, but not limited to, weather and predators.<br /><br />But as markets developed and capital accumulation occurred, it became apparent that Ricardo's "law of association" was valid for all peoples in all times in all places.<br /><br />Simply, it is advantageous for human beings to peacefully work together and trade, in contrast to all-out war and theft. If the goal is a higher standard of living, it makes more sense to rely on mutual exchange than the orders of the tribe leader.<br /><br />The "social contract" does not obey Ricardo's law. Consent is tacitly implied, leading to some egregious abuses of power.<br /><br />The starting point for social contract theories is an examination of the human condition absent from any political order. This is often called the "state of nature."<br /><br />It is presumptuous, however, since any human organization, even among two or three people, implies politics. We are, after all, as Aristotle said, the political animal. When Friday joined Robinson Crusoe on his island, someone had to take charge if a dispute arose.<br /><br />Of course, the "state of nature" could apply to Crusoe and Friday, as both are bound only by their personal power and conscience. The social contract theorist must demonstrate how a rational individual would voluntarily consent to give up his or her natural freedom to obtain the benefits of a political order.<br /><br />For praxeologists, this is simple: contracts.<br /><br />There is no ambiguous "social contract" that binds insurance companies to individuals, nor managers to their employees. In nearly all realms of human action, there are physical contracts that are voluntarily signed and enforced through dispute settlements and resolutions.<br /><br />While many philosophers have long debated about the origin and nature of the "social contract" and natural rights, most of these thinkers lived in the 17th and 18th centuries. And while ideas from 200+ years ago shouldn't be disregarded for the mere fact that they are old, new ideas and insights should be included when formulating the nature of political authority.<br /><br />In other words, unless one has good reasons to denounce praxeology, knowledge of human action must be taken into account if one is going to formulate a social contract theory. Unfortunately, these 17th and 18th-century philosophers did not have the insights of Ludwig von Mises and other "Austrian" economists.<br /><br />John Locke believed we had natural rights that were inalienable, that the rule of God superseded state authority. Others like Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that self-rule (through the democratic state) was the best way of ensuring the general welfare while maintaining individual freedom.<br /><br />But all these theories imagined that there was some objective "rule of law" above and beyond human beings. There isn't. Normative ethics ("what oughta be") are not akin to positive sciences ("what is," i.e. human action, chemistry, physics, etc.).<br /><br />Locke can't prove that we possess natural rights any more than he could have proved God. But likewise, Rousseau's attempt to legitimatize the democratic state fails on both empirical and logical grounds.<br /><br />Someday, people will look back at this point in history and wonder "what in the hell was wrong with those people?"<br /><br />Like nowadays, how we look at historic slave-owning societies and think "WTF?"<br /><br />Someday, the obvious answer will be obvious.<br /><br />An unwritten tacitly-implied "social contract" is not legitimate. Especially in a society that claims to be rational and built on the precepts of peace, fairness and order.<br /><br />Social contract theorists must demonstrate how rational individuals voluntarily consent to give up their natural freedom to obtain the benefits of a political order.<br /><br />Without mutual exchange, this cannot be done.<br /><div style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.5em;"><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Patrick_Riley_2006_pp._347_3-1" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; white-space: nowrap;"></sup></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/frVJd5p1b0Y" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com0http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/07/the-social-contract-scam.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-4604862579153860992016-07-05T18:47:00.003-04:002016-07-05T23:50:49.137-04:00The Libertarian Revolution — Brought to You By The Illuminati<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MZ1R0LOSTVM/V3yADQPOXEI/AAAAAAAADU8/o8wLGXuh3ugfQdB0C1Frki0VGXWT277mgCLcB/s1600/illuminati-confirmed-wyt5s4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MZ1R0LOSTVM/V3yADQPOXEI/AAAAAAAADU8/o8wLGXuh3ugfQdB0C1Frki0VGXWT277mgCLcB/s400/illuminati-confirmed-wyt5s4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>The Illuminati have gold. The libertarians have gold.<br /><br />I rest my case.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br />The Illuminati are giving the libertarians the go-ahead for the <i class="">new</i> new world order. The post-Soviet plan by the corporate-state elite has failed.<br /><br />That is, it is failing. Right before our eyes, every day. As we march toward all-around statism, the economy will collapse and so people must either revolt or starve to death.<br /><br />A successful revolution would look like this: libertarians have the gold necessary to rebuild society.<br /><br />The Marxian academia and youth, the government apologists and politicians — they are all broke. They will have no influence in the rebuilding of society.<br /><br />There is already a commercial class that makes up their own rules. The middle-class will accept this and start forming their own rules. It will be a return to fluid, multiple legal systems like it has been for most of Western civilization.<br /><br />Crony-capitalism is rampant. The solution is to return to free markets, but since the rich won’t give up their special government privileges, entrepreneurs will have to undermine what it means to have government privileges.<br /><br />Hence, the libertarian revolution.<br /><br />Entrepreneurs will provide law and order and social services for everybody. Government tax receipts will be worthless, their services will be inept and their labour will return to the private sector.<br /><br />Gold will be money again, with silver also returning for small-scale transactions. Initially, libertarian-owned gold will buy up acres of land and capital, finding ways to put Americans back to work and thus finally winning the intellectual battle.<br /><br />The nation-state will cease to exist by its own incompetence. It won’t go without a fight, but the centralization of gold as a currency limits government spending power. Their reach will only go so far.<br /><br />Other nations will adopt the return to gold, and American libertarians will successfully reshape the country into anarcho-capitalism, triggering government reformation in all the Western states.<br /><br />But why would the Illuminati need to promote the libertarians?<br /><br />Simple, they have a long-term view of things. They know government intervention eventually fails, that there is no post-scarcity fully robotic world without the need of humans. The only means of prolonging life and reaching for the stars is to keep the population in the billions and the middle class producing and innovating.<br /><br />Alex Jones is an inside job.<br /><br />The 20th century has been successful for the Illuminati’s goals — Christianity has been discarded and the masses share the values that the Illuminati themselves hold.<br /><br />Since they practically own the planet, hanging onto power means directing revolutions and shaping world events on a long-term scale.<br /><br />Governments are petty and only see short-term gains. They won’t abandon their socialism, but economic reality will demand it. The families behind the banks know this.<br /><br />In the struggle between socialism and capitalism, capitalism always wins. Always.<br /><br />The Illuminati understand how the world works, they take this coming adjustment period very seriously.<br /><br />Reintroducing gold is a dangerous step, but necessary. An entrepreneurial class to compete with the crony-capitalists will ensure order is maintained while the goals of the Illuminati remain in sight.<br /><br />The Illuminati, of course, worship dark energy and connect with dark matter. They are evil incarnate, with a love of the senses and material pleasures.<br /><br />The libertarian doesn’t ask for spiritual values or question religion — it is purely a political philosophy, one that would indicate untold prosperity for the human race.<br /><br />But also one that, if implemented now, will serve the Illuminati’s ends by further detaching us from Jesus Christ and fulfilling the prophecy as foretold in the Book of Revelation.<br /><br />Oh, and for those popular Christian libertarians, the Tom Woods, Jeff Tucker, and Lew Rockwell variety? — they are all Catholics, i.e. Jesuits.<br /><br />And the Illuminati, through the Jesuits, run the world.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dblc0TmgK7A">Libertarianism is an inside job.</a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/UM9jKhKaAfU" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com8http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/07/the-libertarian-revolution-brought-to.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-26918706879324134792016-07-04T17:35:00.000-04:002016-07-04T18:24:30.959-04:00Democracy in Ontario<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z9G4CjrhFts/V3rVMPEDmhI/AAAAAAAADUc/NWSdb_WW2Sg699l4VS4xWE0gvmh8mQKpACLcB/s1600/even_possible_aliens-wynne.jpg" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z9G4CjrhFts/V3rVMPEDmhI/AAAAAAAADUc/NWSdb_WW2Sg699l4VS4xWE0gvmh8mQKpACLcB/s400/even_possible_aliens-wynne.jpg" width="400" /></a>Not only did Ontario residents vote for the Liberals again in 2014, there's good reason to believe that Kathleen Wynne's government will win the next election in 2018.<br /><br />Is such a thing even possible?<br /><br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br />Yes, despite Wynne's 20% approval rating, the Liberals could win again.<br /><br />For starters, the Progressive Conservatives are managed by a bunch of pragmatic statists. In 2007, John Tory actually campaigned on funding all religious schools with taxpayer money, instead of the obvious solution which would have been to stop funding Catholic schools.<br /><br />But you know how it is, having to appeal to the electorate instead of sticking to conservative principles.<br /><br />Then, Tim Hudak said he'd downsize the "public" sector by 100,000 jobs. For reasons we'll get back to, this sound campaign promise wasn't well-received and Hudak lost.<br /><br />Now, instead of giving the PC leadership to Jim Flaherty's widow and having a woman run against whatever species Kathleen Wynne is, the PCs are trying again with a white old male and promises of a carbon tax.<br /><br />That's right, instead of acknowledging pollution as a private property issue, the PCs have adopted the socialist premise that pollution is a problem that can only be solved by giving the government more money and power.<br /><br />Democracy really is one of the dumbest political philosophies out there... But here's why Ontario is a prime example of why democracy doesn't work.<br /><br />Ontario's public sector unions have a lot of power. They represent 1.1 million workers, nearly 10% of the province's population. Think of how much attention Quebec gets federally, and they only represent 10% of the country. Or, think about what it would be like if 10% of Americans were radical Rothbardians. A libertarian future may be closer than you think...<br /><br />But back to Ontario - the public sector and its unions are a powerful voting bloc and with lots of cash to boot.<br /><br />Never mind that Ontario is heavily indebted and should probably cut 100,000 government jobs, if not more. The province's public sector went nuts last election, going on a 20-city "Stop Hudak" tour.<br /><br />In every election since 2003, public sector unions have spent millions on coordinated attack ads against the Progressive Conservatives.<br /><br />Even Chief Electoral Officer Greg Essena has said enough is enough, calling for capping third-party election advertising, with warnings that it's creating an uneven playing field.<br /><br />Under public pressure, the Wynne &nbsp;government was forced to legislate new rules limiting ads and banning corporate and union donations, but with tons of loopholes and no consultation with opposition parties. It is unsurprising that the legislation favours the Liberals.<br /><br />Not that it matters too much. After 13 years in power, the Liberals have solidified their base of "green" crony-capitalists, insurance companies, teacher unions, Bay Street, and other sectors that benefit&nbsp;from Liberal rule.<br /><br />The Liberals rake in donation money like no other party. Since January 2015 the Liberals have raised $11.3 million, compared to the $3.9 million for the PCs and $2.4 million for the NDP.<br /><br />As <a href="http://www.torontosun.com/2016/06/18/wynne-can-win-in-2018">Lorrie Goldstein wrote for the<i> Toronto Sun,</i></a><i> </i>"Anyone who thinks money and networks of political influence don't affect elections, doesn't understand politics."<br /><br />Or, like the great<a href="https://mises.org/library/bureaucrat-voter"> Ludwig von Mises once wrote, </a>"Representative democracy cannot subsist if a great part of the voters are on the government payroll. If the members of parliament no longer consider themselves mandatories of the taxpayers but deputies of those receiving salaries, wages, subsidies, doles, and other benefits from the treasury, democracy is done for."<br /><br />Hence, Ontario is an example of why democracy doesn't work.<br /><br />But not all is lost, for, if we follow philosopher<a href="https://mises.org/library/what-must-be-done-0"> Hans-Hermann Hoppe's advice,</a> Ontario can take concrete steps to put its financial house back in order and have a society based on peace and mutual exchange.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the advice is radical -- far more radical than Hudak's plan to fire 100,000 bureaucrats.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><br />First, as an initial step, and I’m referring now to what should be done on the local level, the first central plank of one’s platform should be: one must attempt to restrict the right to vote on local taxes, in particular on property taxes and regulations, to property and real estate owners. <b>Only property owners must be permitted to vote, and their vote is not equal, but in accordance with the value of the equity owned, and the amount of taxes paid. </b>[emphasis mine]</blockquote><br /><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/DxYUGChWC9Y" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com0http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/07/ontario-example-of-why-democracy-doesnt.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-89745018384238613262016-06-29T20:34:00.000-04:002016-06-29T20:38:41.104-04:00Burrard Bridge Construction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.vancitybuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/08-e1420478111403.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.vancitybuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/08-e1420478111403.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div><br />Something needs to be done about Burrard Bridge and I don’t mean state action. I mean, there is already something being done about Burrard Bridge. A 100-year-old bridge in Vancouver, it, like any capital good, needs refurbishing from time to time.<br /><br />But putting the state in charge of hiring a construction company is the stupidest thing imaginable.<br /><br />A normally four-lane highway is now down to one on either side, the sidewalk and bike lanes have been cut off from their respective viewing points and delegated to the side of the road, bordered by cement blocks that were simply moved over (no, that’s not a construction site fixture, those colourless cement blocks separating bikes from automobiles is a regular feature).<br /><br />Simply, Burrard Bridge is in shambles. And we’re told it will be this way until the Fall of 2017.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br />No private owner would ever put up with this. This would be like if someone came to redo my basement but shut off my hot water for long periods of the day&nbsp;— every day — and took over 16 months doing it.<br /><br />This only comes because the bridge is owned by the city government and therefore nobody.<br /><br />Here's a solution: create a Burrard Bridge company and put taxpayers in charge of it by giving them shares.<br /><div><br /></div><div>The longer you’ve lived in the region, the closer you are to the bridge, the more taxes you’ve paid and are obligated to pay in the future — all of that relates to how many shares you’ll own.<br /><br />Only then, with a financial cost on the line, will taxpayers (as shareholders) witness a speedy and convenient repair of Burrard Bridge.<br /><br />And not only that, but odds are under private ownership, the dull greyish looking bridge will come to resemble something&nbsp;aesthetically&nbsp;pleasing. Maybe, given the close proximity to the gay district, the bridge will get painted rainbow colours.<br /><br />Maybe the bridge owners will like the way it looks now, just preferring that motorists, pedestrians, and bikers aren’t attracted to a competing bridges thanks to a massive and time-delaying repair by construction workers, where 80 percent of them wait around and hold signs while 20 percent rip up the road and sidewalk, replacing it with the exact same thing.<br /><br />Until that happens, if it ever happens, expect long delays, where halfway through the wait, cars decide to turn into oncoming traffic and take the bridge back down. I’ve lost count on how many times I’ve witnessed that.<br /><br />And you see that stupid trailer that holds up the blinking light telling you to go one direction or the other? I mean, what is that? What use could that have other than perpetual road construction enabled by a runaway bureaucracy?</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2lBYlI-cVe0/V3Rl8qQW80I/AAAAAAAADT4/phww7LsWjv0J-mM1yzstZrs4NbOxeEipgCLcB/s1600/Message%2BBoard.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2lBYlI-cVe0/V3Rl8qQW80I/AAAAAAAADT4/phww7LsWjv0J-mM1yzstZrs4NbOxeEipgCLcB/s400/Message%2BBoard.png" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Why not install LCDs on the road as a permanent fixture? A low-level light that helps direct drivers when it's dark. That'd be much better than these Soviet-style construction pieces held down by sandbags.<br /><br />Wanna cut down on light pollution? Follow my advice.<br /><br />And finally, what about the overflow of orange? At the bottom of the bridge, where Burrard meets with Pacific Avenue, there is a sea of orange construction pylons. It’s more confusing than it is helpful. But more importantly, it’s butt-ass ugly.<br /><br />This wouldn’t be such a big problem if it were only for a bit. But for the next year and a half? And what about tourists? Are they to see these ugly ass orange barriers as a regular feature in Vancouver?<br /><br />Perhaps it would be better if each pylon was a different colour. Orange for cars, blue for bikes, pink for pedestrians? That'd certainly cut down on a number of car-horns I hear every day.<br /><br />Who knows what the free market may come up with.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Private owners may prefer to scrap the whole construction site altogether. Instead, opting for a temporary replacement bridge that’s easy to build up and tear down, like a real-life K'Nex project. Meanwhile, construction crews would spend no more than a month on repairing the main bridge.<br /><br />If there were financial costs regulating the actions of the city council, Burrard Bridge would be repaired more efficiently and with little delay. Even more so, if the bridge was privately owned and competing with its neighbouring bridges.<br /><br />Someday the city’s taxpayers will come to their senses. BC might be the “left” coast, but it’s also the province that rejected the HST and openly flaunted cannabis prohibition before it was cool.<br /><br />There’s hope yet.</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/M7bz4cgqOhA" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com0http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/06/burrard-bridge-construction.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-17405178668414691612016-06-28T20:58:00.000-04:002016-06-28T23:09:25.636-04:00“Law and Order” is Orwellian<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AWVk0FKx3zU/V3Mc7TXc3qI/AAAAAAAADTo/KjCxGiDR5kQquDwXyb2zvGUaaM15GjSHwCLcB/s1600/lawleb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AWVk0FKx3zU/V3Mc7TXc3qI/AAAAAAAADTo/KjCxGiDR5kQquDwXyb2zvGUaaM15GjSHwCLcB/s400/lawleb.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>"What makes a man, Mr. Lebowski? Is it being prepared to do the right thing, whatever the cost? Isn't that what makes a man?"<br /><br />This question, posed to the Dude, was answered with, “Hmmm... sure, that and a pair of testicles,” which prompted a new question: “Mind if I do a J?”<br /><br />Today, my question for you is - what makes an unjust law? You might want to light that joint first, however.<br /><div><br /></div><div><a name='more'></a><br /><br />Unjust laws only exist because governments are made up of people who are prone to mistakes and corruption.<br /><br />The idea that judges and politicians can truly be impartial is a metaphysical belief that does not jive with reality.<br /><br />Politicians can try to represent their constituency, while lawyers can argue facts from both sides to a judge who will attempt to rule impartially.<br /><br />But the idea that there is an objective “correct” answer presupposes that normative ethics are akin to the positive sciences.<br /><br />In other words, saying that, “censorship is wrong” is fundamentally different from saying, “the planet revolves around the sun.”<br /><br />The latter is a statement of fact, the former is an opinion.<br /><br />Yet, legal jurisprudence isn’t without its merits. In fact, arbitration services for resolving conflict and maintaining not only order but fairness, are clearly in demand.<br /><br />For, without fairness and order, how could a market sustain itself? Without someone writing and enforcing the rules, how could anyone play the game?<br /><br />In Canada, we may have varying degrees of order, but fairness is eroding quickly and I’m not talking about “wealth inequality.”<br /><br />Fairness implies laws that are both homogeneous and heterogeneous where best suited. Murder and theft are wrong for everyone, but selling pornography might be an offence in one place but not another.<br /><br />And, if I get punished for violating a contract I had with you, I shouldn’t get harsher treatment because you’re the brother of the arresting officer or because your dad is a well-connected politician.<br /><br />To keep legal jurisprudence fair and orderly, one must accept the positive science of economics.<br /><br />That human beings purposefully act, that value is subjective, that time preference and opportunity costs are conditions of being human. You can’t wish them away, but you can study and reflect on them. You can build a corpus of economic theory with them.<br /><br />And, as economics and history clearly demonstrate, markets are at the root of civilization.<br /><br />Politicians didn’t legislate us out of the jungle and government bureaucracy didn’t implement the Renaissance.<br /><br />There are solid arguments as to why pornography, or rock 'n' roll music, shouldn’t be allowed in Canadian communities.<br /><br />And this is precisely why the rule of law is a myth.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>There is no right answer. “Law and order” is Orwellian doublespeak because it presupposes order is synonymous with law.<br /><br />But laws can disrupt order, especially when the lawgiver holds a coercive monopoly on the service.<br /><br />The sooner we understand this lesson the better.<br /><br />An “unjust law” is just a rule that cannot be checked by economic calculation.</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/HPomQSfowFM" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com0http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/06/law-and-order-is-orwellian.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-50171064546030034372016-06-27T23:30:00.000-04:002016-06-28T00:47:31.467-04:00Unregulated Markets?<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b></b></span><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.fullmoonfarminc.com/autumn%20market.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.fullmoonfarminc.com/autumn%20market.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">There is no such thing as an unregulated market</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Entrepreneurs restrict each other through competition, and consumers restrict entrepreneurs by patronizing competitors. And restriction of human activity is all that regulation means.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">If valued and demanded, third-party arbitration services, also in competition with one another, will serve other regulatory needs.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Therefore, democracy’s perpetual “crisis in commerce” is completely unfounded. The problem isn’t self-regulated merchant rule, but overregulation of their markets by statist means.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"></span></span></div><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Businesses can’t operate without conforming to laws that are already on the books: criminal law, property law, contract law, commercial law, and the law of tort.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">All the federal government needs to do is reduce its bureaucracy and stay out of people’s business.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">But, instead, we are inundated with endless rules and regulations.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">There is no reason someone needs to address or conform to a government “Licensing and Standards Committee.”&nbsp;</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">There are no state-produced “regulatory mechanisms” and “licensing fees” in a free society.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">This is not the Soviet Union. Canada is not, traditionally, a country that relies on politicians attempting to solve any and every perceived or real conflict that arises.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Canada is not, traditionally, a country that requires entrepreneurs to register with the government for a business license.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">If people are living in cities, where they are surrounded by strangers all the time, then they’ve already demonstrated that peace is a prerequisite.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">There are commercial means of regulating human activity, and they don’t involve using the apparatus of compulsion and coercion as a preventive arbitrator of the first resort.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">If state force maintained order, increased laws and regulation would fix everything. &nbsp;</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Larger police presences would turn slums and city jungles into prosperous metropolises.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">More bureaucratic paperwork would protect consumers and property.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">But that’s not how freedom and prosperity works.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Creating more laws and expanding bureaucracy stifles the taxpayer, hinders the entrepreneur and does little-to-nothing to actually address the root of the problem.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">An actual solution would be to allow private neighbourhood associations and private communities to regulate commerce and security within their borders, instead of delegating that power to politicians.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Unable to calculate rationally, these 19th-century fiefdoms fail at virtually everything they put their mind to.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Therefore, people often don’t see a reflection of their values with the so-called public services they depend on.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">There are no “unregulated markets,” only an unfettered growth of government bureaucracy.</span></span></div><span style="color: #484848; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #484848; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Buyers and sellers can get along without state interference. The sky won’t fall if career bureaucrats cease to interfere with </span>human<span style="color: #484848; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> action.</span><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/5EpIhZL-jgI" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com0http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/06/unregulated-markets.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-74624102739118812252016-06-24T13:16:00.001-04:002016-06-24T20:02:32.776-04:00Happy Quebec National Day! (And Britain's Independence Day!) <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.lpcdn.ca/641x427/201209/08/585521.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://images.lpcdn.ca/641x427/201209/08/585521.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>The word nation really gets some people riled up.<br /><br />Quebec as a distinct nation? No! We are all Canadian and this is Canada and blah blah...<br /><br />Britain left the European Union? Those stupid idiot morons! I don't need a sound argument for centralized bureaucracy, old people are destroying young peoples futures by voting for isolationist xenophobic racism!!!!<br /><br />Today, as well as being a great day for Britain and a bad day for the architects of the EU, is also Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, a public holiday in Quebec.<br /><br />The Orwellian-sounding "Organizing Committee of the National Holiday" puts on festivities June 23 and 24, and the rest of the country, if they remember, acknowledge French Canada.<br /><br />But what's in a name? Nation, union, country, province, neighbourhood, network, market, brand.<br /><br />Since commerce remains restricted and central banks aren't openly regarded as criminal institutions, does it really matter that Britain left? Or that Quebec remains part of Canada?<br /><br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br /><br />In the same&nbsp;way one might use the term, 'country,' as in, "Hey Spot! Go for a drive out in the country?!" I once called Newfoundland "beautiful country," referring to its rural ruggedness.<br /><br />The old man I was talking to got offended. "It's a province!" He asserted.<br /><br />Yes, he was correct. But not until 1949, and apparently under some sketchy details.<br /><br />Canada was a&nbsp;hodgepodge&nbsp;of colonies that managed to unite starting in 1867, seemingly concluding in the mid-20th century, but theoretically, could continue to this day.<br /><br />I'm thinking the&nbsp;Turks and Caicos Islands, Barbados, maybe even Vermont and Maine, Portland and Oregon. There's also a French dependency off the coast of the Burin Peninsula we could take.<br /><br />Granted, I could only support this if the Canadian commonwealth came to mean something entirely different. Like, instead of a strong central government with socialistic disasters like provincial equalization, there would be an assortment of open, fluid, legal jurisdictions and free market commerce.<br /><br />Gold would also have to be money. People would be responsible for their relationships with other people through contract-binding agreements. The kind of stuff where if a conflict did arise, an agreed-upon third-party arbitrator would decide the outcome.<br /><br />This stuff already happens because lawyers hate dealing with the courts. Opening the court monopoly to free-market competition hurts no one.<br /><br />Actually, free trade helps everyone.<br /><br />So why not rekindle the "glorious" days of the British Commonwealth now that they've ditched the European Union? Of course, a commonwealth without top-down control of the state. More like a libertarian interpretation of a union. Where Britain, Canada, and all the others agree to keep economy and state as separate as church and state.<br /><br />Assuming governments don't kill us all first in some nuclear war Hillary Clinton starts with Russia because Americans thought she was the better option -- persuading the masses that exchange is compassionate and nationalism is nothing more than tribal pride could take a while, say, 100 to 200 years.<br /><br />But who knows what the future will bring...<br /><br />Some think Quebec's sovereign movement has faltered for good. The young people are Canadian nationalists. Separatism is a tiny niche.<br /><br />But what will economic deterioration and an influx of foreign-speaking brown people, especially the covered-up ones, mean for Quebecois culture?<br /><br />Will it incite the separatist flame or is geography now irrelevant?<br /><br />I think Britain just answered that question.<br /><br /><br /><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/plqfQf7YhmE" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com1http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/06/happy-quebec-national-day-and-britains.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-31670767395945649722016-06-22T22:27:00.004-04:002016-06-22T22:42:22.145-04:00The CPP is a Scam<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0JN-cdS02KI/V2s5VF8S5RI/AAAAAAAADTM/XhA1kwJzZUkKUpVEuWsqWLygQjDUuHbXgCLcB/s1600/lester-b-pearson-cpp-scam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0JN-cdS02KI/V2s5VF8S5RI/AAAAAAAADTM/XhA1kwJzZUkKUpVEuWsqWLygQjDUuHbXgCLcB/s400/lester-b-pearson-cpp-scam.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;">Was Canada, in 1965, run by old, white, privileged men?<br /><br />Did they envision a pension plan based on faulty economics? Statist dreams for a better tomorrow unchecked by real-life consequences?<br /><br />Until now, that is.<br /><br />The Liberals have decided that in 2019, everyone is going to be forced to pay more into the CPP.<br /><br />Even if you put a transgender minority vagina in charge, the state pension is still a very bad idea.<br /><br />Here’s why:</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"></span><br /><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /><br />First of all — what are we in jail?<br /><br />Is it really the government’s duty to coddle us from cradle to grave? Perhaps a confederacy of dunces would require such leadership, but in a corporate-state economy, it’s just downright creepy.<br /><br />Like Orwell’s big brother, here is this monster called the government, everyone is born into it, no one can undo it, you can freely move to another government if you want but even that requires some state paperwork -- and where you gonna find no government?<br /><br />Somalia? What a</span><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;">re we, comparing European socialism with North Korea? <i>Parla usted Inglese?</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;">Where is the libertarian country? Where is that region of polycentric legal orders based on any goddamn moral foundation you please?<br /><br />But I digress,<br /><br />The CPP works like this: the government takes a part of your income and gives it back to you later when you’re old enough.<br /><br />Problems arise because people live longer than originally planned. In 1965, this would have been to the age of 71, almost 72.<br /><br />In 2016, the average lifespan of a Canadian is nearly 82 years.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;">So just collect more money, then, says the statist. Well, that’s exactly what the government is doing.<br /><br />The federal government has also assigned people to invest the loot into private and public equity holdings, and into real estate.&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;">That the nation’s retirement rests on a board of investors dealing in property bubbles, and that except for ballooning inflation and an erosion of society’s capital goods, everything else is great for mom and dad, I'd say things are all right.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;">Even if debts become unmanageable and private sector pensions fall through, they’ve always got Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement. <br /><br />And everybody knows those will last forever. Never mind the overbearing and fundamentally parasitical costs of the state, there’s always ways to tax immigrants and children.<br /><br />But what about this CPP pension scheme?&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;">What you get from it is supposedly determined by how much you pay into it over a lifetime. <br /><br />What if the economy deteriorates from rampant statism, affecting the current and future prosperity of today’s toddlers, kids, teens, young adults, older adults and, yes, even the elderly baby-boomers?</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;">How exactly does the socialist process of taxing and spending sustain the current standard of living for our parents and grandparents, as well as ourselves in the future?&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;">Perhaps there is a way to do it without punishing savers and producers? Without invoking government bureaucracy?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;">Perhaps one should require consent before entering into a multi-generational relationship?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;">Perhaps the CPP isn't worth preserving?&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;">At the very least, this whole CPP issue would be resolved if all levels of government would eliminate property and income taxes.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;">Debate as you will about sales taxes and the function and scope of government bureaucracy, but at least give Canadians the opportunity to save, invest and retire.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;">How could the government create more wealth than it collects from us? By giving an annual $3 billion to the CPP Investment Board?&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;">What about the tens of billions the Board is expecting in the future?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br />I'm sure Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party know best. People are stupid and irrational. Never mind the debasement of their currency. All that’s needed are higher contributions to the CPP and the wise leadership of our democratically-elected leaders.</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br />By forcing a trade-off people didn't voluntarily make, the Liberals are demonstrating that their preferences override yours and if you disagree and are willing to act on it, you should be locked in a cage.</span></div></div></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/bqwIU7OoCKE" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com2http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/06/the-cpp-is-scam.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-7002221347660980782016-06-21T21:02:00.000-04:002016-06-21T21:06:56.070-04:00Fighter Jets, Pipelines, and Climate Change<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z0kq0bQxAdo/V2nVuaYRVtI/AAAAAAAADS0/byl3KtFnEnEXXhgsC1MAGSGFX5u-DP8vACLcB/s1600/kinderco2plane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z0kq0bQxAdo/V2nVuaYRVtI/AAAAAAAADS0/byl3KtFnEnEXXhgsC1MAGSGFX5u-DP8vACLcB/s400/kinderco2plane.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Are you sure you weren't conditioned by the schools?&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Did your parents reiterate statist beliefs?&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Have you mistaken the self-governing aspect of the market order for a strong, central state?</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">This is why democracy is a sick joke.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br />If fighter jets, pipelines, and climate change are <a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/john-ivison-liberals-grand-design-for-life-may-gloss-over-some-inconvenient-details">the three issues facing Canada</a>, then here is what to do:</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"></span><br /><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /><br />There’s a CF-18 fighter jet replacement program. Navdeep Bains is the MP that will be heading to an air show on the taxpayer’s dime to meet representatives from Boeing and Bombardier.<br /><br />The latter of which is seeking a $1-billion bailout from Ottawa after taking $1.3-billion from Quebec government.<br /><br />But don’t you worry your little statist brain, MP Navdeep will find a buyer for all us idiot Canadians, for, without the federal government, who would provide security services for the common good? Corporations?</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Well, that's the way it is now, where</span><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">&nbsp;Boeing and Bombardier are friendly with one another when it comes to government contracts.</span><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /><br />If you could be plan a free society, then what would it look like?</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Plan?&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">If it could be, then it would be, and since it can't be, you shouldn't even try.&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">But since that never persuades, why not stretch that idea muscle and think of ten ideas on how a society would function without bailing out Bombardier and having federal bureaucrats provide security for the entire nation.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">1) &nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">The current government model but with payment voluntary and terms of service negotiated with consumers through contracts.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br />2) Because national defence poses great externality risks, (e.g. death of innocent people, refugees from violent conflicts, consequences of assassinations, financial costs,&nbsp;use of nuclear weapons), then the fear of organized crime taking over is a legitimate one. Hence, why contractual obligations kept in check by third-party arbitrators would fair better.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Since "money" buys the process anyway, might as well make it official and embrace a for-profit justice system... although you might want to get rid of the central bank first...</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">So if this all backfires:</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">3)&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">That a society could form a civil government on an unwritten social contract and not kill each other presupposes peace and so a governing structure built on actual contracts would also not result in mass murder, but an improvement on the status quo.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br />Now your turn to think of seven more. I have to talk about pipelines.<br /><br />Because Albertans accidentally went socialist in the 2015 provincial election, NDP Premier Rachel Notley is willing to strike a deal with the BC Liberals over electricity.<br /><br />If the British Columbian government receives federal loot to fund a hydroelectric project, then Notley can wean Alberta off coal by buying from the province next door.<br /><br />But that’s if BC gets the taxpayer’s loot. Trudeau says you must let us build a pipeline to the west coast.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br />The BC government rejected the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline and now Ottawa is hoping to rework the regulations and continue the process.<br /><br />The BC Liberals want their share of the loot, but without upsetting the First Nations who are also being promised “benefits.”<br /><br />Nowhere in this debate does the federal Liberal Party need to be involved.<br /><br />For, British Columbians don’t require a federal government in Ottawa. All affairs can be conducted internally, there is no value to Ottawa, it’s just an extra middle-man.<br /><br />But worse, since we’re all forced to pay taxes, and the federal Canada Revenue Agency has taken charge, it's a top-heavy bureaucracy that sucks the taxpayer dry.<br /><br />If taxes went the other way, from producer to local government then provincial government and then to, oh right, we don't need the federal government…<br /><br />It would fix the last issue: climate change.<br /><br />Regardless of your opinions on C02 emissions, and certainly my understanding has wavered for the decade, the idea that government central planning can do anything but destroy is an a priori category of human action.<br /><br />The free enterprise system is the most superior mode of social organization known to man. It is beyond ridiculous and perhaps criminal to reject its role in solving the issue of environmental degradation.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">And pipelines, and fighter jets.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">As Jon Ivison wrote in the <i>National Post</i>,&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">"All governments value the dead hand of bureaucracy over the invisible hand of markets – otherwise, what are they there for?"<br /><br />Indeed, what are they here for? Why the hell does society need the dead hand of bureaucracy?</span><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/E8YbaLt0-h0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com0http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/06/fighter-jets-pipelines-and-climate.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-72034116829453310392016-06-20T19:43:00.001-04:002016-06-21T02:18:45.601-04:00Yes, There is a Housing Bubble in Vancouver<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-46lqWD04A9U/V2h8fnLyS1I/AAAAAAAADSg/L4eH5rY7EMMtX7EUgx4se-QvKAXgL8bXQCLcB/s1600/Housing-Bubble-Tanstaaf-Canada.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-46lqWD04A9U/V2h8fnLyS1I/AAAAAAAADSg/L4eH5rY7EMMtX7EUgx4se-QvKAXgL8bXQCLcB/s400/Housing-Bubble-Tanstaaf-Canada.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Of the housing bubble in Canada, <a href="http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/vancouvers-housing-affordability-crisis-making-neighbourhoods-inhospitable-for-middle-class-trudeau">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said:&nbsp;</a></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">“We need to make sure any action we take doesn’t make things worse.”</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Oh, poor JT, no matter what you do now, it's going to get worse.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"></span><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">Flying to Vancouver on the taxpayer's dime,&nbsp;</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Canada's PC Principal met with Vancouver "experts" to talk about fixing a problem they created but either a) can't admit to, or b) honestly believe they're not responsible.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">Trudeau was smart to speak to the "unintended consequences" of restricting foreign investment&nbsp;but failed to explain how the federal government's Bank of Canada helped contribute to this global monster with artificially low-interest rates.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">He offered no word on how high housing prices themselves are an unintended consequence of creating&nbsp;fake savings accounts for chartered banks.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">That is, how there have been no new savings prompting up this capital structure since the last financial crisis. Governments and central banks just papered</span><span style="font-size: 15px;"><span style="background-color: white;">&nbsp;over the problem and now, in 2016, we are dealing with the consequences.</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">So of course, Trudeau offered no specific promises on what to do now that he's prime minister. A two-day visit, a series of meetings and planning, all costing taxpayers daily, and what was accomplished?</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">An agreement that something must be done to bring down housing prices.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Trudeau said:&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">“We need to make sure any action we take doesn’t make things worse.”</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Oh, poor JT, no matter what you do, there is going to be a crisis. A point in time where prices reveal what Austrian economists have known all along: that the capital structure behind the housing market lacks sufficient funds to sustain its current trajectory.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">No amount of money printing will undermine the reality of scarce resources. Further intervention into the market will only prolong the correction and give a false sense of prosperity.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">But unlike 2008/2009, the central bank lacks ammunition. Interest rates are already low and in some places zero and below.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Besides, that's no way to provide a real recovery.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">The Liberals promised during the campaign to "consider all policy tools" to deal with high prices. One policy tool would be to stop debasing the currency. I don't imagine this will be considered.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">If the government really is engaged in a "deep dive" of information, hopefully, they come across this blog since<a href="http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2010/11/canadas-housing-bubble.html"> I warned of this in 2010</a>. Of course, I would be nowhere without <a href="http://mises.org/">mises.org</a> so check them out that as well.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Everything on <a href="http://mises.org/">mises.org</a> is free, whereas the federal government has already spent $500,000 of our money studying the problem.</span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Like <a href="http://www.library.ubc.ca/chineseinbc/riots.html">most of its history</a>, Vancouver is scapegoating&nbsp;Chinese people. This time, it's foreign investors looking to get their wealth out of China and into Canada.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">Chinese wealth, of course, stimulated by the same massive worldwide inflation that's driving Canada's housing market.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">A real estate bubble is present in China as well, to the extent that the Communist government builds entire cities where no one actually lives.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">If that's not a bubble, then nothing is.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">But insomuch that Chinese buyers are <i>responsible</i> for high housing prices in Vancouver and Canada is to misinterpret the larger picture of cause and effect.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">Once upon a time, people prospered by reducing their consumption and saving their income. This provided capital for entrepreneurs to put to use, with the end result being a higher standard of living for people who periodically stop saving their income and spend on consumer goods.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">An economy grows when one can reduce their consumption yet still live a comfortable life that, nowadays, includes the possibility of iPads and air-conditioning.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">Once upon a time, indoor plumbing was a novelty. Successive generations of capital accumulation,&nbsp;entrepreneurial ingenuity, and technological advancement have led us to this point in civilization, not government bureaucracy.</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">Making credit available where there are no new net savings is called capital consumption. And that's the source of high housing prices.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">Central banks, like the Bank of Canada, make credit available instead of leaving it to the forces of supply and demand.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">And while some may scoff because "money and credit are too important to leave to the whims of the free market," on what basis do they make this claim?</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">Most of the world has had at least 45 years of a government paper standard and 80+ years of central banking and this is the result.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">Not global commerce on a scale never seen before, but the unsustainability of this system that consumes the capital accumulated by previous generations.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">There is nothing Justin Trudeau can do now that won't upset the lifestyle of millions of Canadians. The gravy train is coming to an end.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">And far from being able to fix anything, any interventions by the government "will not annual economics," as Ludwig von Mises wrote, "they will stamp out society and the human race."</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">If Justin really cared about the middle-class, he'd cut some taxes and abolish others, while reducing red tape across the board and legalizing competing currencies.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px;">He'd also order the Bank of Canada to cease its <a href="https://www.mises.ca/what-causes-inflation/">open market operations.</a></span></span><br /><br /><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/nxrhg_pxb3g" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com2http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/06/yes-there-is-housing-bubble-in-vancouver.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-33222861570441192012016-06-16T20:36:00.000-04:002016-06-16T20:40:20.530-04:00Are You Free?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://theruleoffreedom.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/spontaneous-order-hierarchy-network.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://theruleoffreedom.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/spontaneous-order-hierarchy-network.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Do you own yourself?</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Can you <a href="https://mises.org/library/man-economy-and-state-power-and-market/html/p/854">make your heart stop beating and your blood stop flowing?</a></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Can you, or a specialist rather, remove some blood for transfusion purposes?</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Can you <a href="http://cupe.ca/pay-plasma-canadian-blood-services-must-say-no">sell blood on an open market or must it be controlled by centralized unions?</a></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">If the body acts involuntarily to produce sperm and eggs, which you can capture for others, then are the<a href="http://o.canada.com/uncategorized/yet-another-reason-not-to-be-a-sperm-donor"> proceeds of these actions objectively owned by you or someone else?</a></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">If you are a free agent in a world of scarce resources, then what has capitalized centuries of markets, taking the species from the jungle to the modern world of tablets and space exploration?</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Capital is what has created civilization.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">When just right, free action creates and simultaneously protects&nbsp;commerce.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Traditionally, and more ethically, people have used more peaceful means of conflict resolution than the central, democratic state.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The democratic state has been very useful in protecting the interests of itself than the people who give implicit consent to it. Amazingly, many people feel that they still control this apparatus by voting once every four years.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Imagine a hypothetical:&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s the early 20th century and a certain class of businessmen interested in buying legislators, promoting and financing the journalism of fear and fallacies, working to make their competition illegal, are, basically, using their entrepreneurial talent dishonestly, intent on manipulating the state apparatus.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The state, always that bumbling hierarchy of career bureaucrats and sociopaths.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The market advances, but, eventually, the statist parasite becomes a social norm. Even a valued one, it entirely engulfs the market, attempting to regulate all human action and behaviour under the guise of democracy.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">So a new conflict arises, a peaceful “unregulated” market of producers and consumers. People trading, sans the state, using technology, competing currencies, foreign capital, and legal tax loopholes to protect their wealth.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">As the state’s economic policies make people poorer, a lot of people find workarounds, and when it becomes easier to adopt this alternative market lifestyle, many people do so.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">In this hypothetical, a cashless society only speeds up the process, it creates a demand for physical money and so different paper takes the place of the failing digital fiat currencies.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Gold and silver eventually resume their rightful place as a free market money, with the rise of cannabis as a poor-man’s money. Either way, savings are built.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">In this hypothetical, what the corporate-state would present as a conflict would actually be a resolution for a free society.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Conflict resolution by the democratic state has always meant taking away people’s rights, not protecting them.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">For, if every perceived or real conflict is a problem solved by legislation, and laws restrict free human activity for the supposed benefit of all, then what is a democratic government to do but pass more and more rules that restrain human freedom?</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Is it really any surprise that large businesses can “capture” the process to ensure state power is never directed against them? But in fact, use its power to lead people into prosperity or poverty and war?</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Market services already demonstrate instances where states are not required for conflict resolution.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The democratic state perceives and resolves its varying definitions of conflict as some sort of obstacle objectively defined.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">But there is no objective standard. Without a polycentric legal system, that is, without the cheques and balances of the free market, whoever is exclusively providing law can disrupt order.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Peaceful cooperation is a prerequisite in any society that has managed to develop its markets and maintain a civilization.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">State power is its opposite, with the legitimate power to steal, murder and enslave, its functions, if necessary at all, should be negligible for people who are otherwise peaceful.</span></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">How else could you call yourself free?</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/tLqKgkAkucE" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com0http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/06/are-you-free.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-12825331787772977342016-06-12T21:27:00.000-04:002016-06-12T21:34:15.753-04:00Taxation is Armed Robbery and So Can You!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2VKUASPIm58/V14MxNPF51I/AAAAAAAADRo/7N4Z6qBKguM275QhUELc05SWMy-Kl-SLgCLcB/s1600/Rothbard-e1459963786320-300x193.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2VKUASPIm58/V14MxNPF51I/AAAAAAAADRo/7N4Z6qBKguM275QhUELc05SWMy-Kl-SLgCLcB/s400/Rothbard-e1459963786320-300x193.png" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-kerning: none;">You can be arrested for not paying your taxes. You can be thrown in a cage and beaten to death. In that scenario, there are crimes that are committed, but I don’t consider not paying taxes to be one of them.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The biggest criminal here is the state, the monopoly of ultimate decision making, with the power to unilaterally demand how much we have to pay and when.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The state’s power to use violence must be somewhat sedated. If the public ever got around to believing that law did not provide fairness and order, then they might start questioning their obedience.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">That money must be collected through taxes is itself illegitimate.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">When society has problems with gangs, theft, murders, frauds, and all-around chaos, arresting someone for refusing to pay your law and security services does not solve the problem.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It merely distinguishes one gang from another as forced collection is still armed robbery.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><br /><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">There is a precept that undermines the Western legal tradition. Where human rights are inherent in our being, not something decreed by the state apparatus and passed through the legislature.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">A great many of people should be ashamed of themselves. It’s not enough to hide behind the mantra of “just following orders” or the “law is the law.”</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It was once the law to round up Japanese citizens and put them in internment camps.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It was once the law to round up aboriginal children and indoctrinate them into residential schools.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It was once the law to round up homosexuals and stick them in cages just for displaying their sexual preferences.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It was once and in many places still the law to lock people up for cannabis plants.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The police mantra that, “we don’t make the laws, we just enforce them,” pins the blame solely on politicians instead of directing it where it also belongs.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">All action is scarce, police prioritize the law and it is possible to focus on crimes other than tax avoidance.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Police can raid a Days Inn hotel. The owners of the hotel might have some rowdy guests, with nothing going on there being based on consensual relations whatsoever.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Men and women looking to fulfil this demand for a social order, can, like insurance companies, contract an arrangement.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Even if the Days Inns owner doesn’t have police insurance, neighbouring properties are going to get antsy. The bank is probably going to want to have a word, and who let this guy move into the neighbourhood without making sure he had insurance?&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Is that nobody’s job? Does it not get done anymore without the state? Good! Since it’s obviously in demand, I’ll just go ahead and start a company…</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The legitimate use of force requires fairness, and for hundreds of years, laws originating from actual social disputes have been adequate.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">But instead, when life is regulated by the democratic state, for your own safety, you get nearly every “service” you’ve never heard of or felt the need for.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Although the idea might have started with good intentions, the reality is all modern states operate on a Soviet-economic model.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">There is no special blend of capitalism and socialism that we’re doing. At this point, it’s virtually all-around socialism.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Taxpayers can’t cease paying for bad law enforcement.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Taxpayers can’t opt out of pension schemes.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Taxpayers can’t opt out of legal tender laws.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Taxpayers can’t cease paying for state schooling and it’s easy to send your kids there for 12 years of babysitting-indoctrination.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Taxpayers can’t cease calling themselves taxpayers.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Most of them don’t want to.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">But independent of their beliefs about the system, economic calculation in the market directs entrepreneurs to satisfy consumer demands through consensual, voluntary exchange.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Only governmental agencies and their&nbsp;cronies are exempt from this process. Society doesn’t spring up with modern states already in place.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Once people have reduced interpersonal violence enough to allow them to live together and trade and prosper, entities arise to provide fairness and order.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Today’s non-state enforcement services are just an example of what the market could provide.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Brink’s vans transporting currency and other valuable assets for private customers like banks.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Universities with their own private security, like shopping malls and gated communities.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Home security systems.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Lawyers arbitrating outside the courts because taxpayer-funded monopoly courts are incredibly slow and bureaucratic.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LCD_GipXAZY/V14LStwAmZI/AAAAAAAADRY/oomgl2Nx4bogdp6p5i3SmAsY_E1zHP-SACKgB/s1600/2016-03-20-taxation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LCD_GipXAZY/V14LStwAmZI/AAAAAAAADRY/oomgl2Nx4bogdp6p5i3SmAsY_E1zHP-SACKgB/s400/2016-03-20-taxation.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Government is increasingly showing its ineptitude at reflecting the values of the people it supposedly represents.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Taxation is the reason why.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Legitimate businesses require physical contracts to be signed for them to be legally binding.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">No one expects an insurance company to come knocking on your door demanding payment unless you’ve previously signed a contract with them and neglected to uphold your end of the bargain.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Some may argue that because of the special nature of the law and “public” services, only a government monopoly can provide fairness and order.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">But does that hold up to scrutiny in the real world?</span></div><br /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(72, 72, 72); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #484848; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Do funds forcibly supplied to a politically controlled bureaucracy result in political or consumer interests?</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/ByT_lAospm8" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com0http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/06/taxation-is-armed-robbery-and-so-can-you.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-39869481686763257622016-06-05T16:13:00.000-04:002016-06-05T16:13:01.419-04:00Riding with Max Acie (Part 4)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p7V5iJBtseg/V1SHrLveTpI/AAAAAAAADRE/-086XXmDsSM7dqpu0AmGDRyPfaJwSIntwCLcB/s1600/ImageGen.ashx.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p7V5iJBtseg/V1SHrLveTpI/AAAAAAAADRE/-086XXmDsSM7dqpu0AmGDRyPfaJwSIntwCLcB/s400/ImageGen.ashx.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div>I woke up alone in my truck bed. At the Fantasy Land hotel Max and HB were on the Ancient Rome level while I was on the road theme. My lights were street lights and my bed was the back of a pick-up truck. I awoke to breakfast. It tasted like shit. I had a shower, but it was cut short by a knock on my door. It was a hotel employee, a certain Max Acie was trying to contact me. I looked on my phone, I had a couple missed messages. I had only been in the shower for a few minutes and he sent a man to my door?</div><br />I called him to find out what was going on.<br /><br />"He's dead Caleb," The sobbing voice on the other end said,<br /><br />"Who?" I asked,<br /><br />"My Dad."<div><br /></div><div><a name='more'></a><br /><br />"Oh shit. Oh man, I'm sorry."<br /><br />Pause. There was an awkward pause. I could feel it. At first I thought he was offended, in retrospect I believe it might have been a smile. A sinister smile. Caleb had bought it.<br /><br />"You gotta find HB," he told me.<br /><br />“I'll call her,”<br /><br />“I have her phone,”<br /><br />“Why do you have --”<br /><br />“You have to find her Caleb!”<br /><br /> I went on the hunt. It didn't make sense, she wasn't where he said she'd be and he was constantly texting me asking if I had found her. Fuck this, I thought. I returned to my room, packed my shit and was ready to bail when I realized I left my green bag in their car. In HB's car. My green camp bag. It had my laptop adapter, my cell phone adapter, and my paperback copy of Rothbard's <i>Man, Economy &amp; State.</i> I needed that bag. What else was in that car? Just the preppy clothing they've bought me, I thought, and my karaoke CD.<br /><br /> I tried to convince the valet parking staff to give me access to the car, even tried to bribe them. I had silver for god's sake. Nothing worked. I figured the only option I had was to find HB. The West Edmonton Mall is a big place but as fate would have it, I found her. She was frantically running around like headless chicken.<br /><br />"Max has my phone," she told me. <br /><br />"Why does he have it?"<br /><br />"I don't know." She looked worried. "Where is he? He left early this morning,"<br /><br />"He said his Dad died. He's at the hospital."<br /><br />"What?" Now she looked really worried, and I regretted telling her that, "I have to find him." She started talking to her self, or rather, talking to a non-existent Max. Angry that his Dad died before she could meet him.<br /><br />"Listen, Hannah," I said, "this is getting sketchy, my gut feeling says something isn't right. I just want to get my stuff from your car and go home.”<br /><br />"Okay,” she didn't seem to register at first, but when I was standing outside her car with my stuff the reality must have set in. She tried to explain Max's lack of internet coverage.<br /><br />"There was fraud and they had to take down the websites,"<br /><br />I wouldn't budge. "Listen, Hannah. I don't think he's who he says he is."<br /><br /> It was no use. I gave back my "Assistant" Blackberry phone, to HB's disapproval, and then gave her the number to my personal phone. I wanted to her to be okay. I wanted her to drive back to Ontario. I wanted her to forget about Max Acie. He was a pathological liar and things had gone too far. But she wasn't listening. She used the Blackberry I gave her to try and call Max. <br /><br /> I darted off into the mall as she drove away. Poor Hannah, looking for that non-existent hospital where a non-existent Dad was dying or apparently already dead. But hey, maybe that much was true. I went into a luggage store and bought a suitcase to shove my shopping bags and shoes into. I then took a bus to the hostel off Whyte Ave. While on route I got a call from Max, on my original phone, the phone I owned before he had given me a Blackberry. I ignored the call, hoping he'd leave a message. If he tried to call again I'd answer but he didn't. I never heard from him again.<br /><br /> Later that day I met up with my friend Claire and we went for dinner. It was my first time seeing her in over a year. I had met her hitchhiking. I explained what happened. I realized that I had left my jacket in the trunk of HB's car.<br /><br />"But with $500 you can buy a new jacket," she told me.<br /><br /> She was right, but I never did do that.&nbsp;<div><br /></div><div>The next day I took a bus to Canmore. The following day I still had my job interview with Canadian Tire and was offered the position on the spot. The day after that I found a place to live. I never saw or heard from Max or Hannah again. But I still dream about them sometimes. I still have the paperwork to that Blackberry, and so I have Hannah's full name and address. I don't have those Back-to-the-future shoes anymore, or any of that preppy clothing, but I still have ten ounces of silver, perhaps one of these days I'll return it to its rightful owner.</div></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/Q32_bgzFgZ8" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com0http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/06/riding-with-max-acie-part-4.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-7017040267982501332016-06-05T16:02:00.002-04:002016-08-26T16:49:41.244-04:00Riding with Max Acie (Part 3)<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JmmrcALGFoQ/Vcko2CDStzI/AAAAAAAADDw/mT-912TieUs2k1CEcPXLhcet2aclWW1AQCKgB/s1600/hannah.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JmmrcALGFoQ/Vcko2CDStzI/AAAAAAAADDw/mT-912TieUs2k1CEcPXLhcet2aclWW1AQCKgB/s400/hannah.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Note, this isn't the actual tattoo. The names have been changed, obviously.</td></tr></tbody></table>Although my time with Hannah and Max Acie only lasted four days, it felt like an eternity. Especially the couple days we spent in the West Edmonton Mall. We spent only a few hours at the mall on the first day since HB was "malled-out" from Red Deer. It was the first time HB had seen the place, I'd been there before and wasn't too impressed. It's just a mall.<br /><div><br />My focus changed from the ranch to being Max's assistant after he offered me the job that first night in Edmonton. We were by the skating rink when I kept bugging him about the ranch job. Sure, his Mom may hate him, but let me talk to her. Or at the very least, give me the address and I'll just taxi out there. Finally, Max gave up on the ranch idea.<br /><br />"Listen," he told me, "HB and I been talking and we really like you. Now you can probably go work for my mom if you'd like, but I really need an assistant and we'd like it if you could take the job."</div><div><br /></div><div><a name='more'></a><br /><br />"I don't really know much about the sport," I confessed<br /><br />"That's all right. You'll learn. Plus, it's mostly just making appointments, making sure my gear shows up where I'm supposed to be. You'll get to travel. I do a lot of shows in California, Japan, Australia."<br /><br />I ignored my irrational fear of airplanes. The word California hit me like a brick.<br /><br />"I'll give you $500 a week. Cash."<br /><br />"Let me think it over," I said.<br /><br />I walked around the skating rink for a bit, then called my Dad. I told him of the situation. I expected him to be more cautious of the situation, as he always tends to be the sober second thought. But this time, he gave me his overwhelming support.<br /><br />"If you think you'll be happy doing it," he said, "then why not?"<br /><br />Yeah, why not?<br /><br />I decided to take Max up on his offer. On September 24th, 2012, I became Max Acie's personal assistant. He gave me five one-hundred bills and a new Blackberry phone. He told me to hold onto the phone's paperwork for tax purposes. I noticed it was all in Hannah's name.<br /><br />That night as we took our stuff into the hotel Max told me, "get used to this," and a sharp pain struck my gut. This wasn't right. The next morning I sat on the hotel bed thinking the same thing. Something was wrong. This was too easy.</div><div><br />I went for a walk when I heard Max and HB fucking next-door.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>My first stop was a McDonalds where I bought a coffee with a twoonie I had been carrying with me since Winnipeg. I watched the workers behind the counter. I thought about what it must be like to get up every morning, before sunrise, fit into a McDonalds uniform and come to work to do menial labour for eight hours at least. I've done jobs like that, not McDonalds, but grocery stores and factories. Would I ever need to do that again?<br /><br />My next stop was either at a FutureShop or Best Buy. I don't remember which one. With $500 cash in my wallet I glossed over the tablets, Macbooks and PC laptops. My laptop was an old clunker from 2004. It ran smoothly as long as one was running a Linux distribution, but it was missing the one button so anytime I used "1" or an exclamation mark, I had to copy and paste it from somewhere else.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>I got a text from Max, we were leaving for the West Edmonton Mall soon so I left the store without buying anything. It took HB awhile to get ready, so I spent the time in my room watching BNN. Silver's rise was the hot-topic of the day. Later that day I bought 10 ounces.<br /><br />The next forty-eight hours mainly consisted of Max buying HB clothes and jewelry. I came along for the ride. I didn't even hold the bags. As their assistant I insisted on carrying everything but HB wouldn't have it. Max explained why:<br /><br />“Those shopping bags,” he said, “are like flags. They show off to other women where she's been and how much money she has. It's a pride thing.”<br /><br />Max's only request was that we had enough time to visit Bourbon Street, a "street" within the mall that consists of restaurants. We didn't make it there the first day. This caused some tension between the two later on. We left the Mall in the evening with Max driving. By this time the tension between him and HB had been growing increasingly thick all day. The GPS on HB's car got us lost and this was enough for Max. He pulled over and walked out. HB ran after him. I hopped into the drivers seat and found a safer spot to park - out in a subdivision under construction but deserted. I waited for instructions through the Blackberry.<br /><br />Eventually I heard from Max. They had made their way back to the mall, so I drove back and met them outside the entrance near the Fantasy Land hotel. Max and HB seemed to have made up. I lightened the mood further by playing my Karaoke CD. Earlier in the day we found a "Karaoke Booth" where one could sing and record it onto a CD for later listening. Max paid for me to sing. Little did either he or HB know that I don't sing -- I yell. Like a lunatic. On the way back to the hotel we listened to me butcher the Beatles' "Yesterday" while throwing in references to Joe and that "Charter" we're entitled too.<br /><br />The next morning I awoke to a text from Max. He needed a back-tire to his bike. I got the details and then called a spot in the city where we could pick one up. Being the assistant I anticipated having to go myself,<br /><br />“No worries,” said Max's text, “My bro's got it.”<br /><br />It was now our full second-day in Edmonton and neither HB nor I had met anyone from Max's family. It wasn't until later in the day that I figured this out, however. As HB shopped, Max and I sat around checking out the sights at the mall. He mentioned that HB wasn't always like this,<br /><br />"She grew up on a farm," Max said, and this much was true, HB had told me earlier. "But she wasn't like this until she met my sisters. Then she got all girly-girly."<br /><br />"I've never met Max's family," HB told me separately. I asked her later and got the same response, "I'm supposed to meet his family. That's why we're in Edmonton."<br /><br />So far we had spent all our time at the West Edmonton Mall. Max spent a lot of time texting or talking on his phone, I don't know to who, but he claims it was his dad and his brothers. He'd keep both of us entertained with&nbsp;stories from growing up and having a dad in the RCMP. And like always, I was making him laugh and he was making me laugh while HB gave us that “boys will be boys” grin.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>As well, Max and HB continued to buy me clothes. Now that I was their official employee, they were more eager to completely redo my wardrobe. So far I had made it across the country with a single backpack. Now I had shopping bags from Bench, West 49 and more pairs of shoes than my sister. When Max saw my laptop, he assured me that he'd get me a new one. After all, it would affect my job and it's basically paid for through Monster Energy Drinks.<br /><br />The sheer unbelievability of it all kept me from realizing the key to this whole scheme. Max was paying for everything in cash. And when he didn't or couldn't pay in cash (such as, a hotel room) HB would step in with a credit card. At the end of our second full day we hadn't renewed our hotel room and Max was adamant about staying in the Fantasy Land Hotel. He had HB lay down her credit card while he took me shopping for a bathing suit. The three of us were going to swim at the water-park at the West Edmonton Mall. While the two of us were shopping Max told me,<br /><br />"Hey, if it comes up just tell HB that we saw my brother at here."<br /><br />"Ok," I said, unsure of what he was getting that,<br /><br />"I gave the money to my brother."<br /><br />"Yeah," I said more absorbed in the moment than anything else. I knew he was referring to that envelope of cash he got from the CIBC at Red Deer, but I didn't press my analysis any further. After swimming in the water-park, I was supposed to get laid.<br /><br />At least that was the plan. Outside the Fantasy Land hotel, in the mall, there is a bar with slot machines. Max and I had visited it earlier where I met a gorgeous bartender. I was convinced she was out of my league and even if I had a chance, the fact that she's a bartender makes the pick-up even harder. Max wouldn't have it. I was getting this woman. Hence, a whole new outfit for the night (including another pair of shoes).<br /><br />Max and I returned to the Fantasy Land hotel to meet up with HB. In the crowded elevator, a young guy with a thick beard said:<br /><br />“Gentleman, I think it is imperative that we exit the building in a safe and orderly fashion, and convene outside in the parking lot to smoke a joint.”<br /><br />Some of us laughed, most felt uncomfortable. Max said,<br /><br />“Can't do, man. Get piss tested for my job.”<br /><br />“Oh yeah?” Weed guy said, “What do you do?”<br /><br />“I'm Max Acie, the motocross rider.”<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The elevator doors opened and we stepped out.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>By now I was weary of the whole situation. Since getting hired, I'd been drastically searching the internet for Max Acie. When no results came up, I thought I had the spelling wrong. Max's downfall was when he sent me a text that involved his last name. He wanted me to compile a list of mock questions for an interview and in doing so mentioned "Acie line of clothing," which was his personal brand of clothing HB was working on.</div><div><br /></div><div>I had the correct spelling, but all I found was his twitter page. The profile picture that was clearly his arm, with his tattoo of Hannah, the real name of HB who he met a month prior to picking me up. Other than that - nothing. I went to the Monster Energy Drink website, I looked under the sponsored motocross riders and racers. There wasn't anyone named Max Acie. Not even close.<br /><br />And then there were his physical attributes. When Max, HB and I went to the water-park I got a good look at his physique. He wasn't overly obese, but he was definitely out of shape. I didn't think motocross riders had to be in excellent shape, but still. It's a sport.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Max joked that I had the body of a twelve-year-old boy (early-twenties and no sign of chest hair), so I joked that Max had the body of the forty-year-old man. But he did and once I made the joke I realized the truth of this statement. I've known a few people that looked much younger than they actually were. What if Max really was in his forties or fifties?<br /><br />Having fun at the water-park took my mind of it for a while, but my intuitive sense of wrongness surfaced again. I hung out with HB in their room while Max took a shower. Something happened at the water-park and the tension between her and Max was thick again. It was like a fucking roller-coaster with these two. This time I didn't mess around. I got right to the questions I wanted to ask, knowing full well that Max could exit the shower at any moment, ruining my chances at talking with HB in private. I asked her everything I wanted to know,<br /><br />"Have you ever seen Max ride motocross? I don't mean on videos, I mean actually, physically, live, seen him ride? Have you ever talked to his family? His sisters? Did you meet his old assistant? He said you did. An apparent bubble-headed beach blonde that would accidentally wear competitor t-shirts to his shows?”<br /><br />The answer to all these questions was no.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>It seems that HB knew Max almost as well as I did. But she was having sex with him. She trusted him. She, for whatever reason, felt as if she were in love with him. Maybe she was. Or maybe she was in love with the image of him. With a fake Max Acie that didn't exist.<br /><br />Max came out of the shower and the two of us headed for the bar. He sensed the tension. He asked me about it in the elevator, so I bullshitted about the drama between him and HB. He acted like it was her fault. I remain detached. I wasn't sure what was going on and I didn't trust Max.<br /><br />Max won a lot of money on the slot machines, then we made friends with everyone in the bar. It wasn't overly crowded. In fact, you could count on your hands how many people were there. The bartender I had been crushing on had left, but there was a&nbsp;new one. At first, I didn't care, but after a few drinks, I was getting embarrassingly flirty.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>The Weed Guy from the elevator showed up with his friends and eventually I staggered out with them to go smoke a joint. When I left Max and HB they were having one of their tense silent fights. They never yelled at each other - they would just get silent. But the tension was noticeable and it was always thick.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>I don't know what brought this argument on, but I suspected it all came back to the fact that we were now approaching our third day in Edmonton and HB had yet to meet or even speak to anyone in Max's family. I left the bar with Weed Guy and his long-haired hippie friends to smoke weed in the parking lot by their van. I caught myself in reflection once more: I looked like Buddy Holly. I looked behind me to see if Max and HB were going to come. They were still sitting silently at the bar. That was the last time I ever saw Max Acie.<br /><div><span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/3Aa7isEzcNk" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com0http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/06/riding-with-max-acie-part-3.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5931453687256232017.post-81556636437793265032016-06-02T16:18:00.000-04:002016-06-05T16:18:28.667-04:00If Any Good Came from the Toronto Raids<span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">“If this is legalization,” an emotional Jodie Emery told the media last week, “then Justin Trudeau lied.” Well, yeah. That’s what politicians do.&nbsp;</span><span class="cb-excerpt-dots" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">...</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://cannabisincanada.ca/if-any-good-came-from-the-toronto-raids/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: red; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="cb-read-more" style="-webkit-transition: background 0.35s, color 0.35s; box-sizing: border-box; color: #161616; display: inline-block; font-size: 10px; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: 1px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 3px; text-transform: uppercase; transition: background 0.35s, color 0.35s;">READ MORE..</span></a><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TanstaaflCanada/~4/ExLJmBPcV50" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>Caleb983http://www.blogger.com/profile/10485176355086983772noreply@blogger.com0http://www.calebmcmillan.com/2016/06/if-any-good-came-from-toronto-raids.html